The Post-Interview Thread - Post Interview Experiences Here

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manwhoisthursdy said:
So I don't need another student to protect me from a negative review ... though honestly, I appreciate that you want the forum to be useful and accurate ... just consider that maybe some of us want to hear the best and the worst. If you disagree with his negative review, leave positive comments!
....................
About another poster's accusation of bigotry ... well, to accuse someone of bigotry is like accusing them of child molestation ... when done without sufficient evidence, it can be very damaging to the accused (even if totally unfounded) and it's quite an aggressive act.
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You find it objectionable my calling golfpropsychguy a bigot. Please realize that it is in no way detrimental to him personally since none of us knows who he truly is.

On the other hand for him to say about the assistant PD, whose name can easily be identified on the Jefferson website, that "his exposure to forensics was via the internet and some weekend conferences during residency" is definitely injurious and slanderous to his reputation. Don't you think the mentioned assistant PD is entitled to be protected from attacks on his professional reputation?

You cannot use your anonymity to destroy another persons reputation. It's unacceptable and I have forwarded this post to him, the PD and chair. Let him and Jefferson deal with SDN and golfpropsychguy.
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Important Questions -
I met with the Chair, PD, and two attendings. They were all great. All had read my application and seemed genuiney interested in just talking with me about how I chose psychiatry, what area I see myself in, and why Arizona. There was nothing out of the ordinary and all were welcoming.

Highlights -
The chief resident was very involved in our interview day, more so than any other program I've been. She had breakfast with us in the morning, lunch, and did one of the tours. During breakfast in the cafeteria I was surprised that about 4 residents stopped by our table to say hello. That was one of the most striking things about the program, was how friendly everyone was. The program in not huge, 6 res a year, so it doesn't have the same opportunities at your fingertips that larger programs might have, but it is still a strong university and seemed that you can get what you want with some seeking out.

Call Hours -
Call schedule seems pretty nice. Psych call is 4/month PGY1, 3/month PGY2, and 2/month PGY3. So there is call 3rd year, but not that bad. Call can be taken at home but they said you have to go in once called so it essentially is in-house call. I'm not sure why they called it home call. Medicine call is q5 for 2 months. Neuro is all psych call. There are up to 8 training calls. The med months are 2 mo gen inpt, 1 mo peds or ED, and 1 mo FP. Post call until 2p. General psych days are 8-4/5 and 1 wknd day for a couple hours.

Friendliness -
How friendly everyone was one of the things that stood out. The residents were all down to earth, normal people. Also seemed very family-friendly, ie 3 months maternity if that's something that pertains to you.

Location -
Tucson is a mid-sized city. It is beautiful, in the desert with palm trees and cactus, tons of outdoor activities, warm all year with super hot summers. There are parts of Tucson that were very seedy looking but that's true everywhere. The cost of living isn't bad, most people we talked to bought homes. It's not huge like NYC or LA but it's still a city.

Most Positive -
Friendliness, nice balance b/w good exposure and training but still have a well-balanced life, residents normal, down to earth people, not a bad call schedule, there is a psychoanalytic institute, private and public hospital exposure

Most Negative -
No independent psych ER, I think there is only a child fellowship so you'd have to leave if you wanted to do forensics or something else.

Good luck everyone on the trail!
-Janie
 
Danica said:
You find it objectionable my calling golfpropsychguy a bigot. Please realize that it is in no way detrimental to him personally since none of us knows who he truly is.

On the other hand for him to say about the assistant PD, whose name can easily be identified on the Jefferson website, that "his exposure to forensics was via the internet and some weekend conferences during residency" is definitely injurious and slanderous to his reputation. Don't you think the mentioned assistant PD is entitled to be protected from attacks on his professional reputation?

You cannot use your anonymity to destroy another persons reputation. It's unacceptable and I have forwarded this post to him, the PD and chair. Let him and Jefferson deal with SDN and golfpropsychguy.
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Dear Danica, I'm confused. First, I don't agree or disagree with what goldpropyschguy said ... if you say it's slanderous (which implies it's untrue) ... maybe it is! I don't know.

But I do know that you called him a bigot, which has specific connotations beyond just "he said something slanderous about someone". You accused him of racial bigotry specifically, implying he wouldn't have said that about a white person in the same situation.

Now not only do you not provide any evidence of this racial bias, but you even admit that you don't know who golfpropsychguy truly is ... so how can you call him a bigot? You say it's not detrimental to him personally, but calling someone a bigot seems to me to be a perfect example of saying something personally detrimental! Since he did not write anything with a racial content (that you quote) and does not evidence a pattern or racial discrimination (that you are able to show) ... by what definition is he a bigot?

It's a scary accusation, and to use it to uphold professionalism is quite ironic.

It would have been much better, don't you think, to just reply to his post and say, "I don't think this is fair... the assistant PD's experience is x, y and z, and my experience of Jefferson is x, y and z ... so I don't understand golfpropsychguy's post at all, I think he is way off." What's wrong with writing a post like that?
 
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Here is Dr Watson's reply to my email:

Clarence Watson to me
show details 12:32 PM (17 minutes ago) Reply

Thank you for your email. Unfortunately, my forensic experience as outlined was very much inaccurate. If it is important for those who are interested in having a forensic experience at Jefferson, I am happy to provide an accurate account of my experience.
I completed a one year fellowship training program in forensic psychiatry in New York following the completion of my general adult training, which included court testimony on a weekly basis, as well as, rotations through Rikers Island and the Manhattan Criminal Court Forensic Clinic. All in person, no internet. In addition, as forensic psychiatry is the interface between psychiatry and the law, my experience as a licensed attorney has been extremely relevant.
Perhaps this would be helpful for those folks considering Jefferson. In terms of slander, my reputation stands for itself and with that I am comfortable.
Thank you again for your messsage.

Clarence Watson, JD, MD
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry
Associate Director of Residency Training
Department of Psychiatry, Jefferson Medical College
Thomas Jefferson University
833 Chestnut Street, Suite 210
Philadelphia, PA 19107
(215) 955-6105

In other words, golfpropsychguy is a hugh LIAR.

In case you were unaware, Dr Watson is African American.

Good bye.
I'm finished with this discussion.
 
golfpropsychguy has edited his earlier post to remove the erroneous and offending content.

Danika has posted an extremely gracious statement from the APD in question that makes his credentials clear.

The matter is resolved, as far as I am concerned.

Although it might be nice if any posts accusing people of being bigots, and containing quotes of golfpropsychguy's erroneous post were also voluntarily removed.

Attempts to redredge this issue will be punished!
 
wish i could send jane70 and rtennis18 a cake or a pie or something. their posts are priceless.
 
Suedehead said:
wish i could send jane70 and rtennis18 a cake or a pie or something. their posts are priceless.
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Definitely, wholeheartedly, agreed.

Getting back to interviews: anyone got info on Colorado?
 
1. Important Questions: I met with the Program Director, the Program Director for Child/Adolescent Psychiatry, and a faculty member that was the attending at UCH (Univ. of Colorado Hospital). The interviews all went really well, although were much longer than previous interviews (~1 hour apiece, except for the interview with the program director which was ~30 mins). I felt like the questions I was asked were much more detailed than what I had at other interviews (ie. Not just, "Why psychiatry", "Why our program"). Some asked me very interesting questions about my learning style, how I prepared for board exams, how I would handle a difficult situation. However, all were very friendly.

2. Highlights: Denver is a beautiful city. >320 days of sunlight per year:) The program is definitely very strong, with a strong emphasis in biological psychiatry, although, I was asked several times about my views on psychotherapy and it was clear that this is a very important area for them as well (maybe not as much as biological). I thought UCH was BEAUTIFUL! Very new facility with gorgeous views. Denver Health Medical Center is also really nice for a county hospital.

3. Call: I am completely going blank on this one and don't have my notes in front of me. I know that you have one month of night float and it seems like call on medicine (while at Denver Health) is very unique with shift work (no 24-30 hour shifts). The residents themselves had difficulty explaining it to me, but stated that everyone really like the call system and you seemed to get more free time with that type of schedule. If anyone wants to know more about the call schedule, pm me and I will get my notes!

4. Friendliness: Overall, the residents were very friendly (especially the ones that went to dinner with us). Class size is big (~12/class), and it seems like each class kind of does its own thing. But, several residents talked about having movie nights, game nights, etc. Good mix of married and single residents.

5. Location pluses and minuses: Denver is, as stated above, a beautiful city. Where else do you get that much sunshine? (maybe Florida:)). If you enjoy the outdoors or skiing, you will love Denver. The psychiatry dept. is in the middle of a move to UCH from it's current location, but this should be completed in March. (did not seem like a big deal). I actually got a little sick from the altitiude, and think I should have drunk more water, but then again, I'm not used to the altitude. Surprisingly, the weather was very mild while I was there (~55 degrees). For me, I think Denver is a little too far from my family (I don't have family anywhere close), so that was a minus for me, but maybe a plus for someone else?:) Good restaurants, grocery stores and neighborhoods. Reasonable housing costs.

6. Most positive aspects: Overall a great program. Lots of fellowship opportunities. CEDAR (A place for patients with addiction) is amazing! If you are interested in addictions, this would be an awesome program for you! Lots of opportunities- I really feel like the PD will try to help you with whatever you want to do.

7. Most negative aspects: Travel between Denver Health and UCH seems to take a long time (~30-40 minutes), so if you for any reason had to do something at each hospital in a day, it might be inconvenient.
 
1. Important Questions: I met with the PD, the PD for Child Psych and Triple Board, 2 other faculty as well as 2 residents. Each interview was ~30 minutes. Most just asked typical questions, as to how I chose psychiatry, if I had any idea of what specifically I wanted to do, how I chose Pittsburgh. Very conversational and comfortable. Probably one of the least exhausting interview days I have had, despite interviewing with 6 different people.

2. Highlights: WOW! I knew that WPIC was well respected before I went, and now I definitely know why. I was thoroughly impressed with the program, faculty and residents. They have an entire psychiatric hospital with numerous floors (I can't remember how many but maybe 12?). They have an amazing psychiatric ER (known as the DEC). They have tons of services within the hospital (including really unique ones like Merck, which is for children with mental ******ation and autism, a child and adolescent bipolar service, geriatric floor, psychotic disorders floor, etc.). The list goes on and on and on. They also have amazing ancillary staff, especially in the psychiatric ER. There are clinicians, social workers, attendings and residents. My understanding is that there is very minimal scut work and you really get the opportunity to learn. Great moonlighting opportunities.
WPIC also has numerous fellowships and tracks. They have just started a clinical educator track which seems really interesting. Also have a research track. Faculty and PD's are completely behind their residents. Very impressed with them.

3. Estimated call hours: Call is definitely front loaded. q4 while on Family Medicine (3 months), night float system while in the DEC (approx 3 weeks) (rotation is 3 months), and I think the remainder of psych rotations are q7. I think the residents said your estimated clinical duty hours first year were 60/week. Call is reduced second year, with residents taking call in the DEC once every 2 weeks. I think there is still floor call, but cannot remember specifically how often. C and L is pager call (From my understanding). No call in 3rd or 4th year, unless you want it (ie. Moonlighting).

4. Friendliness: The residents at WPIC are amazing. Very friendly and knowledgeable. I would be very happy to work with this group of people. Readily gave information about what they thought pluses and minuses of the program were, and why they chose the program. All seemed very happy with the program (With the exception of one or two, who simply did not like the weather in Pittsburgh).

5. Location, pluses and minuses: So, I think this is the biggest negative about the program. I'm not sure that I could live in Pittsburgh, although it was just voted "America's most liveable city". It was very cold and rainy/icy while I was in town. However, I must say that there are a wealth of things to do in Pittsburgh with lots of sports teams, the theatre, the symphony, a zoo, great restaurants and shopping. It is very, very affordable to live in Pittsburgh and one can readily afford a house in a nice area (<200,000 for a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home with a yard). I would say the biggest negative is that it is very cloudy, and reportedly, is that way pretty often.

6. Most Positive Aspects: WPIC is AMAZING. Truly an AMAZING program. Definitely one of the best in the country. Their chairman is currently working on the DSM-V. A multitude of research and leadership opportunities. If you can think of it, you can do it. Great colleagues and faculty. Great teaching. Lots of patient diversity. Lots of fellowships and if you decided you wanted to do a fellowship elsewhere, I have no doubt that you would get a good one. Very dedicated faculty.

7. Most Negative Aspects: Parking is a big one. WPIC does not provide you with parking, although I've heard that they did increase their education fund substantially. Residents either take a bus, have their spouses drop them off, or pay for parking (about $4.50 per day) in a lot that is a little walk away (but that might matter if the weather was bad). A few of the residents complained about Journal Club, saying that they wished it was more informal. The cafeteria in WPIC closes around 3 pm, so if you are on call, you have to find another way to get food, although I think the DEC orders out.

8. Overall Impression: I was very, very impressed with WPIC. Wow!
 
I'm adding Belle826 to my list pie-deserving members.
 
1. Important Questions: I had three interviews with faculty members, each lasting about 45 min. They all asked the typical questions (why this program, why New York, why psychiatry). One of the interviews was with a private practice psychiatrist who does supervision for residents and he asked me considering my strong academic record (honored most classes and am AOA), why didn't I honor my M2 psychopathology class? I was irritated by the question because I clearly proved myself on my psych clerkship and psych shelf exam. He also asked me how an English major scored so high on Step 1 (how do you answer that?). But I really liked the other two interviewers and found them easy to talk to. I was a bit disappointed that you don't get interviewed by the PD (although he did seem extremely nice).

2. Highlights: NYU has a fantastic program with amazing clinical opportunities. They rotate at Bellevue (public hospital), Tische (private hospital) and the VA, among other hospitals, so you get a ton of variety and come out of the program being able to handle anything. Their Psych ER is amazing! Also the program is in the heart of NYC, which is great for me. The residents are very cool and seem genuinely happy to be there. A ton of the residents stay on to work at NYU as attendings, which seems like a good sign.

3. Call: They are currently revamping their call schedule because it is the hardest during PGY3 year. I'm not exactly sure what it will be like next year.

4. Friendliness: The residents and faculty seemed nice, but there is definitely a chaotic feel to NYU. It's a large program (I think around 16 or 18 residents/class) and you're all scattered at different sites so there doesn't seem to be a ton of cohesiveness. The PD emphasized that the people who do best at NYU are the ones who want to just dive right in and get their hands dirty. Doesn't seem like a great place for people who need a little more hand holding or support.

5. Location pluses and minuses: It's NYC. For me the plusses are all the advantages of such a vibrant urban setting. I can't wait to explore the city! The biggest minus for me is the cost of living.

6. Most positive aspects: Incredible clinical opportunities, with patients coming to Bellevue from all over the world. Bellevue even has a court in the hospital! Residents seem genuinely happy and excited to be there.

7. Most negative aspects: While I think NYU would be a fantastic place to train, I have hesitancies about how large and spread out it is and how little support there seems to be for the residents. (This was emphasized for me by the PD not even interviewing the applicants.)
 
1. Important Questions: I was interviewed by 2 attendings and the program director. Nothing too out of the ordinary. One of my interviews was solely me asking him questions about the program. The PD was a really nice guy and sat all of us down to talk about how the match works.

2. Highlights: The best part of LIJ for me was that it's a stand alone psych hospital adjoined to a full medical campus, so you get the best of both worlds. The residents seem really happy. Part of your medicine and neuro months intern year are spent on the psych campus seeing consults, which seems so much more relevent than straight out medicine and neuro! LIJ just merged with the North Shore program so that still seems to be a work in progress. There seems to be a lot of construction on campus with nice new buildings on the way. There's almost nowhere to eat around there except for a tiny cafe!

3. Call: The nice thing about their call system is that during PGY1 and PGY2 years, you're on call with another resident so you never feel overwhelmed. Can't remember the exact call frequency, but I don't believe they have a night float system.

4. Friendliness: Very friendly. I liked everyone I met.

5. Location pluses and minuses: LIJ is in Long Island, which by public transportation took me about 2 hours to get to from Manhattan. Most of the residents live in Long Island or in Queens and drive to the hospital. LI is a nice residential area and Manhattan is accessible. Personally, I'd rather be in the heart of Manhattan than in a suburb.

6. Most positive aspects: Everyone was very nice and the training seemed very solid. There are research opportunities if you want them. I loved the stand along psych hospital aspect.

7. Most negative aspects: For me, the location in Long Island is a big detractor. It also slightly bothered me that the PD did not provide us with a list of residents' contact information or recent graduates' post-residency plans.
 
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1. Important Questions: I was interviewed by the PD, 2 attendings and 1 resident. One of my interviews was the director of the women's mental health clinic and I just adored her! She was very friendly and supportive. The PD is also very nice, but to all those interviewing here, be prepared for a psychoanalysis during your interview with her. She asked me how I felt about my mother, etc. It was a bit suprising, but I honestly enjoyed talking to her and felt comfortable opening up.

2. Highlights: Outstanding faculty and very strong didactics. Especially important for me is Cornell's association with Sloan Kettering, where you get to do some of your medicine and C-L months (I'm interested in psycho-oncology). Part of your time is spent at the Westchester campus which has tons of interesting clinical opportunities (including an eating disorders unit, which I'm interested in). Cornell provides transportation to Westchester. The residents said that the medicine months are tough as you are truly treated as a medicine intern.

3. Call: Don't remember the details of their call schedule. I think about half of it was spent on night float. One thing that bothered me is that their call room is someone's office! There's literally a desk in the corner where some administrative person works during the day. It's odd.

4. Friendliness: Cornell has a reputation of being formal and stuffy. I definitely see that. (For example, you are carefully instructed not to knock on your interviewers' doors, but rather wait for them to open their door -- maybe this is standard for psychiatrists, but it seemed a bit stiff to me.) That being said, I really liked everyone I met and the residents were all very nice and eager to talk and share their experiences.

5. Location pluses and minuses: Again, this is NYC with all the perks of the city. One big plus to Cornell is that it offers AMAZING below market priced apartments right across the street from the hospital on the upper east side. (One thing the residents told me is that almost all the residents and a lot of faculty live in this housing so you can be riding down in the elevator in the morning with your attending, which feels a bit suffocating.)

6. Most positive aspects: Overall, I really liked this program. The faculty are world class, the didactics are strong, the residents seem very bright and seem to be happy there. There's a big emphasis on psychoanalysis and psychodynamics, which I like, but may be a turn-off for others.

7. Most negative aspects: Number one negative aspect is the stuffiness/formality. Also, I hear the PD only works 1/2 time -- I'm not sure how this affects the residents' experiences. Each residency class meets once a week for a group processing session (like a group therapy session), which strikes me as a bit intense (although I do like the idea of the administration providing an outlet for residents). A big criticism of Cornell is that the patient population is limited to wealthy white people because of Cornell's location (upper east side). The PD spent a fair amount of time dismissing this as a myth. I'm not sure what the truth is.
 
Suedehead said:
wish i could send jane70 and rtennis18 a cake or a pie or something. their posts are priceless.
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It is kinda funny having the posts right smack in the middle of all that :)

and it's nice to get back to the interview feedback! :)
 
winchester1615 said:
A big criticism of Cornell is that the patient population is limited to wealthy white people because of Cornell's location (upper east side). The PD spent a fair amount of time dismissing this as a myth. I'm not sure what the truth is.
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While I didn't go to Cornell for residency, I had several faculty who did and I successfully referred patients there for inpatient & outpatient treatment. The inpatient experiences at P-W and at the Westchester campus involve patients from a wide range of SES, circumstances, and diagnoses due to the nature of mental illness in NYC. My sources told me that Cornell's willingness to treat patients with insurance (including medicaid) and sliding scale, created an outpatient population of similar variance. I've been told that the most homogenously wealthy white patient populations were on the medicine months in PGY-1. For what it's worth.
 
I've been procrastinating posting my experiences, so I'm going to post my quick thoughts on the programs I've seen so far. It would take me forever to go through the standard form everyone's been using, so I'm just gonna freestyle it.

Temple:

Things that stood out: they have very friendly residents, a very nice PD, and I also really loved the chair. The faculty seem dedicated to education. I attended a case conference with Dr. Fink, a psychoanalyst who used to be assoc. with Jefferson, which was fascinating. I heard awesome things about Dr. Weisman, their C/L attending but did not have a chance to meet him. They have a very, very very busy ER and a lot of inpatient beds, and so there is no doubt that residents get excellent experience in treating the most severe mental illness. And it's in Philadelphia, the greatest city on Earth since the fall of Byzantium.

Negatives: There are no fellowships, although many residents go on to do fellowships at other places (mostly in Philadelphia, but certainly not limited to that). Research is possible, but not as huge as at other programs, if this is your thing. It's also not in the nicest area of Philadelphia. Call is very very busy (not just in frequency, but in how busy you are in the ER ... residents said they usually do not sleep a wink).

Penn State / Hershey:

Things that stood out: Hershey, PA is beautiful. I really liked the PD and the faculty I met, as well as residents. A very good child fellowship. Residents seem very happy. A very family-friendly program. Not too far from Philly and Baltimore.

Negatives: Hershey, PA is a great place for raising a family ... but not necessarily the most exciting place if you are single. There is a lot of research going on in some areas (famously Sleep Medicine) but not in every area.

Case Western / UH of Cleveland

Things that stood out: I loved this program ... especially all the C/L opportunities (including outpatient psychosomatic clinics) and the best forensics program ever in the world. Cleveland has an American Psychoanalytic Assoc. accredited institute. It's also a much nicer city than I had thought, with nice neighborhoods, beautiful homes, lots of great restaurants and culture. Residents seemed unusually cool -- they hang out with each other, have a life outside of residency, and for some reason I just felt like I'd fit in. People are big into sports, if that's your thing. Oh yeah, fourth year is all electives with many awesome choices.

Negatives: Cleveland is cold and it snows quite a bit, which may be an issue for some. All of the psych inpt and outpt stuff is moving to new buildings that we weren't able to see ... so this is probably a positive but I can't say for sure.

UNC-Chapel Hill:

Things that stood out: Great child and forensic fellowships. Residents are very cool. Lots of people into sports (especially basketball of course) if that's your thing. Chapel Hill is a beautiful college town with quite a bit to do, great music, great restaurants, and living nearby (e.g. Durham) is quite affordable. Great southeast weather. I loved the neurosciences hospital, with psych inpt and outpt integrated into the larger UNC hospital complex. There is also a psychoanalytic institute here (UNC-Duke affiliated, APsA accredited).

Negatives: Though I like Chapel Hill, it's not a big city. Intern year call is supposedly very very tough, but there is a night float system so I doubt it's all that bad ... just on the tougher side for psychiatry perhaps.

Medical College of Georgia:

Things that stood out: I heard many great things about the chair, Dr. Buckley, though didn't have the chance to meet him (he was away). Dr. Shevitz, the PD, is one of the nicest people. The residents were very friendly. Very very family friendly program. Augusta is very affordable.

Negatives: Augusta is also small, and not much to do! Also a very small program, which could be a negative depending on your perspective.

Emory:

Things that stood out: Excellent C/L opportunities including very fascinating mind-body research. A strong psychodynamic presence, with the institute actually in the dept of psychiatry. Great fellowships in everything really -- IMHO this is one of the best programs in the country, and probably the top program in the southeast. There is a new PD, but the former very well loved PD is still around, the new PD is very dedicated to education (he was the med student clerkship director before taking his new position). LOTS of research going on in every area.

Negatives: Traffic in Atlanta can be bad ... and you have to commute between three main sites. This is not a huge program if you live in a strategic location, but if you are trying to commute from the suburbs it would probably drive you crazy.

Long Island Jewish / Zucker Hillside:

Things that stood out: It's near New York! A very nice stand-alone psych hospital with the advantages of being part of a huge hospital system. Tons of opportunities for research. Excellent fellowships too. The PD is awesome - very dedicated. Residents felt like education was a serious priority.

Negatives: Quite a large program -- for some it may be too large? It's not actually in New York City -- this has positives and negatives of course (I actually really liked the area -- it's very easy to get to Manhattan and some residents actually commute from Manhattan).

UVA:

Things that stood out: Really beautiful area. A very nice hospital. You can do electives for the medicine months, so residents are doing cool things: palliative care, or endocrine, or rheum., or geriatric medicine, etc. Got to discuss with one of the faculty his research on near-death experiences and "remembered past lives" -- pretty fascinating stuff. They are developing psychotherapy, research and public psychiatry tracks.

Negatives: Charlottesville is beautiful, but small. At least Richmond and DC are not far!

University of South Carolina:

Things that stood out: Very family friendly, great child and forensic fellowships (they also have geriatrics). Almost no call (just call on medicine and pager call when at the VA), though this is a negative as well, and may change in the near future. Great addictions experience with an internist-addictionologist all the residents work with.

Negatives: The "no call" thing. Columbia is not that small, but it's not the most exciting city either IMHO.

Yale:

Things that stood out: Everything! I really liked most of the residents (the onces I didn't "really like" I did not dislike at all ... I just didn't click with everyone). New Haven, because of the presence of Yale, actually has a lot of cultural stuff going on. Awesome jazz, opera, art, theater, great restaurants (Malaysian Spanish Indian Japanese you name it). Close to NYC and Boston. Research in everything you can imagine. Very motivated residents. An extremely friendly PD. Strong biological research but also a strong psychodynamic tradition, with the Western New England Psychoanalytic Institute in New Haven. Excellent fellowships in everything, and I think their forensic fellowship is especially renowned. The relationship between psych and the other depts, as well as between the medical depts and the other Yale depts (music, drama, sociology etc etc) seems very good -- lots of collaboration in unique ways. 4th year is all electives, with tremendous opportunities. There's a research track, if that's your thing.

Negatives: I loved New Haven, but if you are used to the excitement of NYC or Boston then it may not be enough for you. Also, it seems that you work hard here -- intern year medicine includes at least one ICU month, and it's 6 months of medicine + 2 months of neurology. I think that suits me just fine, but it could be a negative for some.

Whew. That's it for now. PM if you want.
 
1. Important questions – I had meetings with the program director (Dr. Liang), assistant program director (Dr. Bennett), and one other faculty member. They mostly asked about my research and volunteer experiences, what made me decide to pursue psychiatry, why my interest in a research career, and also about my strengths/weaknesses. The interviewers were all very nice, and were able to answer all my questions about the program.

2. Highlights – The interview day was very unique in that each applicant basically had their own schedule. Due to the small number of applicants for each day, each applicant had an individualized tour with one resident and then lunch with another resident. The day ended with a final session with one of the chief residents which was very laid back. Dinner was also scheduled for the evening after the interview for any applicants who could attend. The residents were uniformly positive when discussing their training experience at Cincinnati. They felt like the training was definitely very balanced between psychopharmacology and psychotherapy, which was noted to be very strong. Also excellent reputation of the child psychiatry fellowship, for anyone who is interested. Research is also a major strength, as there are investigators working on pretty much any topic you might be interested in. Research track available for those who are particularly interested. New facilities for child psychiatry built on College Hill campus, about 15 min from the main medical campus. Also will be starting a Resident Psychotherapy Clinic for PGY-3s, which will be a private practice based model. Presence of Triple Board program (3 residents/yr) and Combined Family Med/Psych (1-2 residents/yr) enrich the program, which has 6 general psychiatry residents per year.

3. Estimated Call Hours – Call hours were extremely reasonable. In PGY-1, call was q5 overnight for psychiatry months, q4 for medicine, and home call during inpatient neurology and no call during consult month of neurology. Also, residents do not work on weekends unless on call, and that is a new thing that is appreciated. For PGY-2, during 4 months of VA inpatient, you do call at VA until 11pm. You do 2 months of Emergency Psych, including 6 weeks of nights where you act as attending (although there is backup attending). PGY-3 has call once/month, no call during PGY-4.

4. Friendliness – The residents and faculty that I interacted with during my day at Cincinnati were all extremely down to earth and so friendly. It definitely felt like the residents got along with each other, and were a happy bunch overall. The faculty seems very responsive to their needs when different issues come up.

5. Location, plusses and minuses – Cincinnati is a pretty vibrant city, with an active arts scene and plenty of stuff to do in your spare time. There might not be as much excitement as say NYC, but it is definitely much more affordable. The rents are around $500-800/month for a pretty nice place, and some residents have even bought houses/condos. Some live in the city, well others live in nearby Kentucky or the surrounding Cincinnati suburbs.

6. Most positive aspects – Residents are happy, solid and balanced clinical training, excellent for child psychiatry, strong researchers present at the institution, administration responsive, relatively stable program.

7. Most negative aspects – Dr. Liang will be stepping down at the end of this year, and Dr. Bennett will be taking over as the new training director. She seems very excited and enthusiastic about this, and seems very prepared as they are already overlapping on their roles this year. Overall though, not too many things wrong with this program. Seems like a great place to get trained in psychiatry.
 
Belle826 said:
The cafeteria in WPIC closes around 3 pm, so if you are on call, you have to find another way to get food, although I think the DEC orders out.
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While it might seem like a small detail, this is actually a major ACGME accreditation violation - hospitals with trainees in-house for 24 hours MUST provide 3 meals a days on-site.
 
Belle826 said:
1. Important Questions: I met with the PD, the PD for Child Psych and Triple Board, 2 other faculty as well as 2 residents. Each interview was ~30 minutes. Most just asked typical questions, as to how I chose psychiatry, if I had any idea of what specifically I wanted to do, how I chose Pittsburgh. Very conversational and comfortable. Probably one of the least exhausting interview days I have had, despite interviewing with 6 different people.

2. Highlights: WOW! I knew that WPIC was well respected before I went, and now I definitely know why. I was thoroughly impressed with the program, faculty and residents. They have an entire psychiatric hospital with numerous floors (I can't remember how many but maybe 12?). They have an amazing psychiatric ER (known as the DEC). They have tons of services within the hospital (including really unique ones like Merck, which is for children with mental ******ation and autism, a child and adolescent bipolar service, geriatric floor, psychotic disorders floor, etc.). The list goes on and on and on. They also have amazing ancillary staff, especially in the psychiatric ER. There are clinicians, social workers, attendings and residents. My understanding is that there is very minimal scut work and you really get the opportunity to learn. Great moonlighting opportunities.
WPIC also has numerous fellowships and tracks. They have just started a clinical educator track which seems really interesting. Also have a research track. Faculty and PD's are completely behind their residents. Very impressed with them.

3. Estimated call hours: Call is definitely front loaded. q4 while on Family Medicine (3 months), night float system while in the DEC (approx 3 weeks) (rotation is 3 months), and I think the remainder of psych rotations are q7. I think the residents said your estimated clinical duty hours first year were 60/week. Call is reduced second year, with residents taking call in the DEC once every 2 weeks. I think there is still floor call, but cannot remember specifically how often. C and L is pager call (From my understanding). No call in 3rd or 4th year, unless you want it (ie. Moonlighting).

4. Friendliness: The residents at WPIC are amazing. Very friendly and knowledgeable. I would be very happy to work with this group of people. Readily gave information about what they thought pluses and minuses of the program were, and why they chose the program. All seemed very happy with the program (With the exception of one or two, who simply did not like the weather in Pittsburgh).

5. Location, pluses and minuses: So, I think this is the biggest negative about the program. I'm not sure that I could live in Pittsburgh, although it was just voted "America's most liveable city". It was very cold and rainy/icy while I was in town. However, I must say that there are a wealth of things to do in Pittsburgh with lots of sports teams, the theatre, the symphony, a zoo, great restaurants and shopping. It is very, very affordable to live in Pittsburgh and one can readily afford a house in a nice area (<200,000 for a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home with a yard). I would say the biggest negative is that it is very cloudy, and reportedly, is that way pretty often.

6. Most Positive Aspects: WPIC is AMAZING. Truly an AMAZING program. Definitely one of the best in the country. Their chairman is currently working on the DSM-V. A multitude of research and leadership opportunities. If you can think of it, you can do it. Great colleagues and faculty. Great teaching. Lots of patient diversity. Lots of fellowships and if you decided you wanted to do a fellowship elsewhere, I have no doubt that you would get a good one. Very dedicated faculty.

7. Most Negative Aspects: Parking is a big one. WPIC does not provide you with parking, although I've heard that they did increase their education fund substantially. Residents either take a bus, have their spouses drop them off, or pay for parking (about $4.50 per day) in a lot that is a little walk away (but that might matter if the weather was bad). A few of the residents complained about Journal Club, saying that they wished it was more informal. The cafeteria in WPIC closes around 3 pm, so if you are on call, you have to find another way to get food, although I think the DEC orders out.

8. Overall Impression: I was very, very impressed with WPIC. Wow!
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I'm glad that you wrote and that you had a good interview. I'm doing an elective at WPIC now that started 2 weeks ago. I was supposed to interview on Monday, but after a horrible couple of days here, I cancelled it. The major reason was the parking. Parking is something I've taken for granted. I had to park illegally twice, which I HATE HATE HATE, just to get something done that was expected for me to have done at that specific time. I have spent OVER A 100 dollars on parking at various places for the past 2 WEEKS. Then I hit my car on a post in a parking lot trying to maneuver out after being told by the attendant that I couldn't park somewhere that I had been told that I could park.

Then I've experienced that about 50% of the public service people in Pittsburgh (not necessarily WPIC) have NO MANNERS. The ladies at the ID card place spoke down to me when I needed directions. A couple of other people have just appeared to be inconvenienced by my patronage.
Personally, I don't mind the weather. The drivers are actually pretty courteous, esp since I have out-of-state plates. I haven't found traffic to be a big problem either.

Didactics were good. I got a weird vibe from the residents being there as a medical student.

Hmmm, what else. There is an air of disorganization. I've heard that from other people too, for what it's worth. Previous residents say that it's not a warm and fuzzy place and that there is no hand-holding. Ditto on the diversity.
Keep in mind that when you interview, people are on their best behavior. But if you can tolerate the things I mentioned above, I'm sure that it is an amazing institution. There is some expert here for everything that you could possibly be interested.
Feel free to PM me if you have any questions or want a raw opinion about my limited experience in Pittsburgh.
 
Any insights on UMass - would like to know about call, location, research opportunities. Thanks!
 
clz said:
Any insights on UMass - would like to know about call, location, research opportunities. Thanks!
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I'll address each of those things based on what I learned at my interview.

Call-roughly 2/month intern year, 3/month second year, 2/month third year, and 1/month fourth year with no calls 6 months of fourth year

location-Worcester is a decent sized city, 100,000+ people. it's not the most aesthetically pleasing, but it's not bad. it's about 45 minutes to an hour from Boston, though that can be heavily impacted by traffic. a number of residents do live in Boston and commute--it's feasible because they're going against traffic. otherwise, it seemed like there were a number of residents who lived in and around the city and it was relatively affordable to purchase a house. there's a large immigrant population in Worcester so there's pretty good racial/cultural diversity. there are apparently pretty good restaurants. the hospital itself is located right on a lake and there are some scenic views from the psychiatry offices.

research-this is a relative strong point for the program. they have a large faculty doing research in a variety of different things. the new chair just brought in a bunch of NIH funding. he also started academic interest groups. these focus on topics (eg first break psychosis) and are open to anyone in the department. if the focus group members come up with areas to research, they can collaborate on getting funding. the plan is that if they're able to get significant research generated by a given focus group, that group could eventually become a division within the department. there's also a career investigator track, which is a 4-5 year program that has significant time allocated for a major project. people often go on to get a phd following this. in general, the department probably doesn't have the breadth of yale, mgh, or columbia, but for it's pretty impressive in its own right.

couple other things to mention-the program director is a neuropsychiatrist, so they take one fellow each year in that. apparently the residents get strong neuropsych training. they also take two residents each year in the combined child residency. there's about 8 hours/week of dedicated didactics that are supposedly pretty good. the residents themselves seemed like a group--enthusiastic, not to stressed, and satisfied with their training.
 
clz said:
Any insights on UMass - would like to know about call, location, research opportunities. Thanks!
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a lot of dittos on what Jose said.

:love: I loved the program. There are over 200 faculty members for a program of 4 adult residents in each class, which is a huge ratio, so there is a lot of opportunity for personal attention. Research opportunities abound. They asked me a couple times about doing research, so I got the impression that it is something they are interested in recruiting for, but not an absolute necessity. I don't think research is required as in some programs.

I didn't pay too much attention to the call schedule because it sounded too good to be true. I thought I heard them say that a lot of call is home call and I thought I heard them say that there is no overnight call on IM. That can't be right though. At any rate, the call schedule seemed quite reasonable.

Another thing that impressed me is that they kept talking about how much they accomodated residents with families. It was like they were encuraging me to come there and have children. I thought it was impressive that a LOT of med students stay and do residencies there. I thought that was great and spoke very well of the program. They seemed to be very much oriented toward resident learning and not busy work.

Anyway, I loved it's too early to say it'll be my #1, but I would definitely be happy there.
 
jose & sikegeek thanks a bunch for your posts on UMass! you guys are on my pie list :)
 
1. Important questions – I had meetings with the associate training director (Dr. Luo), another faculty member and a current resident. They asked about why I wanted to come to California, why psychiatry, what I was looking for in a program to be a good fit, and about my past experiences. One hard question that was posed was how one could navigate the interface between faith/spirituality and psychiatry.

2. Highlights – All I can say is that UCLA is a very impressive program, where it seems like everything you could want is available as long as you are willing to be a self-starter and pursue after it. They are in the midst of opening the brand new Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center for Spring 2008, which will house 3 inpatient units (child/adolescent, adult, and geriatric) starting next year. It is a big program with 14 residents per year, but it seems like the residents are a very close bunch nonetheless. The programs big strengths are definitely research, child psychiatry, geriatric psychiatry and the vast faculty (both full-time and voluntary for supervision). Rotations occur mostly at the UCLA Medical Center located in the Westwood area, as well as the West LA VA located near Brentwood. Residents also spend a month at the UCLA/Harbor County Hospital during intern year working in the psych ER, and one month of outpatient medicine at Sulpeveda in North Hills.

3. Estimated Call Hours – The call schedule is very reasonable due to the large number of residents in each class. As explained by the chief residents, the PGY-1s have q4 call on medicine, q6-7 during psychiatry rotations (protected time to sleep from 9:30pm-2am), and 2 blocks of 2 weeks each of night float at the VA. For PGY-2, q8 call (with protected time to sleep from 2-7am) with no weekends unless on call. PGY-3 have 2 calls/month from 5-11pm at UCLA. No call during PGY-4.

4. Friendliness – This was one of the greatest assets to the program. It just seemed to me like the residents all came from very differing backgrounds and brought a lot to offer the program. There were over a dozen residents who showed up for the applicant lunch, and during the happy hour after the day, there were well over 10 residents attending as well. The residents are definitely well-rounded people with many interests outside of medicine.

5. Location, plusses and minuses – Amazing location of the medical center in the Westwood Village area of LA, with plenty of shopping and restaurants nearby. Even the VA hospital is in a very nice area of town called Brentwood. The only thing is that housing is very expensive in the area, with many residents living in Santa Monica, West Hollywood, Brentwood, and the surrounding Westwood area.

6. Most positive aspects – very friendly, many research opportunities, world-class faculty, great location, impressive facilities, strong child psychiatry program, exposure to many different clinics during PGY-3 (mood, anxiety, psychotic, PTSD, eating disorders, CBT, women’s health, etc).

7. Most negative aspects – expensive to live in LA, may be too large of a program for some people. Overall, I pretty much only have positives to say about the program as I really liked it.
 
1. Important questions – I was interviewed by the PD and two faculty members. Two of them skimmed my application during the interview and said "tell me more about X activity." Generally asked about why New York, why St. Vincent's, and about my family.

2. Highlights – There is a fantastic sense of community here. The residents seem happy and close knit. Everyone is extremely nice and enthusiastic. The patient population is very reflective of the Greenwich Village neighborhood (transvestites, HIV+ pts, as well as all the other psychopathology you can ever imagine!). The residents seem to love the neighborhood and go out together a lot. On the more negative side, the hospital went bankrupt 2 years ago (is no longer in bankrupcy now), but is in the rebuilding stages. There is currently talk about moving the psych inpt beds crosstown to Cabrini, while the outpt facilities will remain where they are. The whole medical campus is undergoing a facelift (including building an entirely new hospital). One of the outcomes of this is that the resident housing will be shut down. There is talk about setting up residency housing in Jersey City. According to the PD, this housing is amazing, though would require a commute. All of this is very much up in the air.

3. Estimated Call Hours – There is no psych night float system. Interns take call ~4 times/month covering the floors. PGY2's take call ~2 times/month covering either the floor or the ER. PGY3's take call ~1 time/month covering the ER. PGY4's take back-up call for a week every couple of months (I believe).

4. Friendliness – Unbelievably friendly here. Everyone seems extremely supportive.

5. Location, plusses and minuses – In the heart of Greenwich Village with all the restaurants, bars, etc to offer. Current resident housing is below market price with those choosing to live elsewhere given a (small) housing stipend.

6. Most positive aspects – very friendly, warm community atmosphere, for now everything is in one place and you only take call for one hospital, very unique patient population, PD seems young, receptive and excited about the residency program, residents definitely seem happy

7. Most negative aspects – Program is in a state of flux right now. I can only imagine that it will get better, but it made me a bit nervous how much is up in the air. Also, while research is possible here, this is definitely a community program without the big name, faculty or research of other places in NYC.
 
Here are some (unorganized) notes I took:

MGH/McLean

Ranked first by US News, and they're not shy about talking about it. This is an AMAZING program, and I came away from MGH feeling like I would be able to go anywhere from here. Definitely had a research feel, but psychotherapy is still taken seriously here. Seems like there is a lot of pressure to go into academics and to "lead" the field of psychiatry. The residents were a little odd, but clearly very smart.

Work very hard (near the 80-hour limit!), strong teaching, strong emphasis on mentorship. Probably partly due to the long hours, it didn't seem like a very family-friendly program. Overall, though, this IS MGH, so you'll get fantastic training.

Longwood

Again, great program, but if you want the Harvard name on your CV, you're going to have to work long hours for it. In spite of the tough call schedule, the residents seemed happy. It's not as research-oriented as MGH, and a lot of people here seemed to have a chip on their shoulders about not being at MGH. The residents raved about the didactics, but complained that the numerous training sites made things seem a little disjointed.

Cambridge

Liberal, warm, and fuzzy. Residents are very bright, but because Cambridge is a community hospital, there are fewer research opportunities than at MGH. Unlike the other Harvard programs, residents don't work themselves to death, and have time for moonlighting. It was unclear, though, whether they finish the residency as well-trained as graduates of other top programs. The residents here seemed more intellectual than the Longwood residents, and more down to earth than the MGH residents. Psychodynamic psychotherapy is still alive here.

Columbia

Arguably, the very best training program in the country right now. Residents seemed happy, comfortable, and extremely bright. The faculty are world leaders in their subspecialties. The program is well-organized, research is very strong, and psychotherapy training is as solid as any of the other top programs. Columbia's location is a little sketchy, but it is in NYC. The PD left a few months ago to take over Mount Sinai's training program, and the interim PD seems ok.

The didactics are AMAZING! They are well-structured, and the residents seemed to think that they were very well-correlated with what they were doing on the wards. The only major complaint I heard from the residents was that they occasionally ended up on research wards, where they had less freedom than they would have liked.

EXCELLENT program!

Cornell

The residents here were very smart, but only one or two seemed really happy, and they were all on the stuffy side. They work harder here than at Columbia (and take more call), but it's not clear that their training is any better. More than one resident hinted that the program was unfriendly to starting a family. Housing was a big plus, except that you're living in the same building as many attendings. A lot of the residents go into academics and/or private practice in NYC.

Like all of the nyc programs, there's a strong emphasis on psychoanalysis. The pt population isn't very diverse. The PD seemed strong, but not as accessible as PDs at other programs, and she's only a PD part-time. This is a small program, so research isn't as strong as at Columbia, but they seem to be working on improving that.


Johns Hopkins

Probably the best biological training out there. The residents are very medically-oriented, didn't seem particularly intellectual, and worked hard. Internship year, with its extra time on the medicine wards, was a turnoff. Psychotherapy training is weaker than at other programs, but there are some amazing clinics at JHU, and a lot of the faculty are luminaries in the field. There is a definite "Hopkins approach" to psychiatry, and if that's your thing, you'll feel very comfortable here. Baltimore was better than I expected.

UCLA

I loved UCLA. They claim to be the 'best in the west', which is definitely true for research. The psychotherapy training also seems strong, but there is less of an emphasis on it than in other programs. The PD is a little eccentric, but very nice, and the residents liked him. The faculty members I met were friendly, brilliant, and fascinating. The residents were smart, had lives outside of residency, and seemed to really like each other. The program is large, and i got the sense that you could easily get lost here, but the program has a ton of money, allowing you to do just about anything you want, and NPI would be a wonderful place to train.

Stanford
Wow. Stanford had the happiest residents I've met, and for good reason. They have amazing training, work less than the residents at UCLA or UCSF, and go on to do whatever they want. The faculty I met were awe-inspiring. The program has a research-bias reputation, and it's clearly very strong in research, but I came away with the impression that the psychotherapy training here was top-notch. In fact, many of the graduates go on to private practice, and it's not discouraged here: there is a lot of support for whatever it is you decide to do. The patient population is on the homogenous side, and the area is expensive.

Seems to be very family-friendly, and some residents commute from SF. The atmosphere is relaxed, but the training seems to be among the very best out there. They did brag a bit about their standing in the US News rankings, but I'm not sure how much that really matters.

Overall, this is a WONDERFUL program.

UCSF
I wanted to love UCSF, but it just kept letting me down. The residents work very hard here, and complain about having little guidance/oversight in their first year. Didactics are said to be weak and disorganized. UCSF is the only major program in San Francisco, so it is VERY competitive, and the residents are extremely bright/accomplished. The faculty members I met weren't as impressive. The research here is weaker than other top programs, and although they have a psychoanalytic reputation, none of their full-time faculty are analysts. The residents thought they got good supervision in psychotherapy. The new PD seems nice, and the residents like her. Excellent location, but even with the housing allowance, the residents I talked to complained about their pay, compared to the cost of living. The facilities were kind of depressing looking, but the city more than makes up for it.

In the past few weeks, BOTH the Chair of the psychiatry department AND the dean of the medical school were asked to resign. They still don't have anyone leading their Child/Adolescent program, and the PD has only been here since the summer. Not sure how this will change training, but it can't be good for the program to have all of that weak leadership.


Seattle

The PD here was spectacular -- she was warm, friendly, and beloved by all of the residents. Seattle has fewer perks (less vacation, no personal office space, longer work hours, lower pay) than other major programs, but the city is beautiful and affordable. The program seemed to be structured a lot like other western programs (training at a university hospital, VA, and a city hospital). The residents were generally smart and had interesting backgrounds, but it didn't seem like many would end up in academics. They all seemed happy, and the PD is very accommodating to residents who want to start families. Psychotherapy is strong here, with an emphasis on dbt/cbt. One big plus for Seattle is that there is a direct path into UW's child program, so it's very easy to get into this fellowship if you're already a resident there.


WILL INTERVIEW AT NYU, MT SINAI, and YALE...will post more later.
 
winchester1615 said:
Friendliness: Cornell has a reputation of being formal and stuffy. I definitely see that. (For example, you are carefully instructed not to knock on your interviewers' doors, but rather wait for them to open their door -- maybe this is standard for psychiatrists, but it seemed a bit stiff to me.) That being said, I really liked everyone I met and the residents were all very nice and eager to talk and share their experiences.
.... A big criticism of Cornell is that the patient population is limited to wealthy white people because of Cornell's location (upper east side). The PD spent a fair amount of time dismissing this as a myth. I'm not sure what the truth is.
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I'd think that the reason you shouldn't knock on the doors is that the psychiatrists may be seeing a patient.

As for the patient population, there are a lot of wealthy white people on the Upper East Side (and some of them are the reason that the medical school raised $600 million last year), but it's safe to say that when rich people get depressed, they don't go to a resident for psychotherapy (instead, they are probably seeing the psychiatry attending who doesn't want you knocking during the session).

Cornell is on the UES, but it's also in New York, the most diverse city in the country. Since they don't treat predominately a single ethnic group (as does a place like Columbia), Cornell's residents end up seeing patients from all sorts of demographic, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups.
 
1. Important Questions -
I met with the two attendings, two residents, and the PD. Nothing out of the ordinary was asked. Lot of talk about their research projects going on and if this was something I would be interested in. The resident interviews were basically me asking about the program. Having two of those interviews plus the lunch was a little redundant. The interview day was actually kinda painfully long. With breakfast with the chief, two resident interviews, two attending interviews, PD interview, lunch, and tour by the time the closing mtg with the chair came around there were absolutely no questions left from our group and thus a lot of those long, uncomfortable silences.

2. Highlights -
The U of M is definitely a strong program with a good reputation. Throughout the day they kept emphasizing that they are not a biologically focused research oriented school despite what rumors say. That being said, while they convinced me you would get ample psychotherapy training, there is still a whole lot of research going on there. I am not into research at all, and although they said it is not mandated, it just seemed that alot of exposure you may want in particular areas would be in terms of research projects. Many of the residents we met too were involved in research.
They do seem to have a good variety of patients so even though it's in little Ann Arbor, there is good patient diversity. There is also a busy psych ER.

3. Call Hours -
Call is front-loaded. PGY1 is q4-6 at the VA. Med months is q4 for at least two months but there is no neuro call. PGY2 is night float and I think no call in PGY3 or very minimal. General work day is 8-5, 65h/wk.

4. Friendliness -
Residents and faculty were very friendly. They were nice, normal, down to earth people who did not seem intense. Faculty was equally nice.

5. Location -
Ann Arbor is a great college town. It has great restaurants, bookstores, independent movie theaters, everything you'd want in a college town. Cost of living is good with many of the residents buying condo's/houses in residency. It is a college town though so if you need a big city it might not be a good fit. However, I definitely consider myself a city person but would live in Ann Arbor b/c it's just so cool. It does get very cold and snowy though.

6. Most positive -
The residents are unionized and they have some nice perks - 4 wks vacation, 5% raise every year, most holiday's off including your birthday, nice conference allowance. All the fellowships are offered. If you want research, a lot of good projects going on. Part of a big university with good reputation, busy PES, and good group of residents.

7. Most negative -
Ann Arbor is a positive and a negative. Great college town but it is just a college town. Very cold but great summers.
 
Important Questions -
I met with two attendings and the PD. All were nice and the interviews were very conversational. They were longer, 45 min and so allowed ample time for conversation. Did ask challenges you've faced in life, challenges you might face in psych.

Highlights -
I absolutely loved this program. The residents were fabulous. They were just a great group of friendly, totally down to earth, normal people, so nice and welcoming. My favorite group so far. The program itself is great with busy inpt unit at UIC hospital. They divided the inpt unit into 4 teams, 2 mood and anxiety, one women's MH, and one psychosis, which is an interesting way to do it. No independent psych ER but a busy enough consult at the regular ER. Lot of Women's MH training, good psychotherapy training with an institute in Chicago, an outpt Eating Disorder clinic, very clinically oriented which is a plus for someone like me who's not so into the research.

Call Hours -
Call schedule is not bad at all. PGY1 is q5 on inpt psych which is only 4 months. Then 2 months while on urgent care/ER psych consult, it is wknd call, 2 wknds/month I think. Med months is q6 for 2 mo on inpt and no neuro call. You can do peds for the entire 4 months - peds inpt, outpt, and/or peds ED. So there can be 4-5 months call free year one. PGY2 is 2 wknds a month, PGY3 is 1 wknd a month. Up to 6 training calls. Normal work day 8-5

Friendliness -
So friendly, definitely a strong part of the program.

Location -
Chicago is a great city. UIC is centrally located by the loop and several of the residents did not have cars, which they said was very workable. Chicago is really cold though, snowy, and pricey. Most of the residents rented.

Most Positive -
Strong program, good faculty, good patient diversity, in a great city, great group of residents, good psychotherapy and pharm training, good child fellowship, great call schedule, large program (10-12/yr), nice that you can do all peds first year. All in all a great program.

Most Negative -
Chicago is cold and pricey. However, it is a great city. The salary is the lowest among the Chicago programs (start at $42)
 
1. Important questions – Day started with breakfast and an introduction from the program director and co-director. Then I had two interviews with faculty members, with a short break after. That was followed by a brief meeting with the program director. We then attended Grand Rounds, followed by lunch where several of the residents from different classes dropped by to answer our questions. The PD and co-director gave a final overview on the program, and then the day concluded with a tour of the facilities led by one of the chief residents.

2. Highlights – Mount Sinai is located in Upper East Side near Central Park, so that is an unbeatable location. Residents also get experience rotating at Bronx VA and the Forensics Unit at Elmhurst to add diversity to the training experience. The facilities were impressive. Teaching seems to be strong, especially starting with PGY-2. Many opportunities exist to pursue research if that is your interest. Good psychotherapy training - affiliated with the NY Psychoanalytic Society & Institute. Strong in child psychiatry, with the presence of Triple Board program at Mount Sinai. Subsidized housing available close to the hospital, which is a big plus in this expensive area of NYC. New program director Ron Rieder, who previously held the position at Columbia for many years seems like a good change for the program.

3. Estimated Call Hours – Very reasonable and manageable hours for call. PGY-1 do one overnight call/month. Otherwise have one short call/week (5-10pm) and 2 weeks of night float which is 10pm-8am Sun-Fri. PGY-2 do 2 weeks of night float at Bronx VA. PGY-3 do 3 overnight calls/month at the psych ER (12 hour shifts). No call during PGY-4.

4. Friendliness – The residents who I met during the day and lunch seemed friendly and said that they enjoyed their training experience at Mount Sinai and living in the city. Some of the faculty members seemed more serious than I am used to, but maybe that is just the way things are.

5. Location, plusses and minuses – Cannot really ask for a better location than the Upper East Side of Manhattan for psychiatry training, also with the added Bronx VA site. Subsidized housing available close to the hospital, which is a big plus in this expensive area of NYC (ranging from $1100 -1450 per month for a studio).

6. Most positive aspects – The program directors wanted the residents to become experts in particular areas of psychiatry, and are trying to model the program to facilitate this. Opportunities to be set up with mentors early on in training. Also get an elective month of medicine in PGY-1 and elective month in specialized area of psychiatry during PGY-2. Early exposure to inpatient child/adolescent psych during PGY-1.

7. Most negative aspects – The program seemed a bit more formal than some of the others that I had seen. It is expensive to live in NYC, but at least it seems like the residents do have some time to enjoy what the city has to offer. PGY-1 didactics may not be as strong as the other years, but it is something they are working on improving.
 
Beth Israel: Community program located in the east village. I was pleasantly surprised that the chairman of the dept was present all day long and was even one of my interviewers. He was very nice and intelligent. I was also interviewed by a CL attending. At the end of the day I sat down with the PD, who is relatively new to the position (about 2 years I think) and who seems very enthusiastic about the program. They are in the process of building a CPEP and a new inpatient unit. The didactics seem very well organized and there is a built in research project that spans PGY2-4. The residents seem happy and close. There is guaranteed housing in several buildings. All in all a very solid program.

Columbia: I was interviewed by the assistant PD, a CL attending and an eating disorders researcher. These were the toughest interviews of my whole interview trail. I got pimped on my research and asked some pretty personal questions. I posted this in another thread, but whereas at all other programs the interviewers have been warm and welcoming, saying such things as, you'd be a great fit here, the attitude at Columbia seemed to be, we're the best and you'd be really lucky to end up here. Not a great feeling... In spite of this, I really liked the residents a lot. They appeared very bright and friendly. I also think the didactics and research opportunities are top notch. Of note, they do medicine for 6 months, including one month of ICU. They also get 3 months of elective time intern year. The only call they take intern year is during their medicine inpatient months (3 total) and none for the other 9 months. Call seemed pretty doable for PGY2 and PGY3 years. Their CPEP seems like a great place to learn emergency psychiatry. Also should mention... one of my interviewers said this: "Columbia wants to train future leaders. If you want to just go into private practice and spend time with your family, that's not valued here." I'm conflicted about this program. I think they provide outstanding training, but I don't know how comfortable I would be there.

Mt. Sinai: I really wanted to love Mt. Sinai. Unfortunately, they were quite disorganized. One of my interviewers didn't have time to see me, so I was interviewed by someone who had never seen my file before and basically had me recite my resume to him. The new PD, Dr. Rieder, turned me off a bit by his emphasis on "specialization." It didn't seem ok to not know what you want to do. However, he's very warm and I think he has big plans to revamp this program, which everyone there seems excited about. The residents seem pretty nice and content with their program. There's housing nearby that is below market price. Overall, I didn't love the program the way I wanted to, but I am still planning to rank them.

Albert Einstein: I interviewed with the PD, the deputy PD, and the vice-chairman of education. Everyone was very friendly and warm. The chief resident was so nice and answered all of my questions. The residents were the nicest and happiest group of residents I have met. Their units are not resident dependent so they get every Thursday off for didactics, which means they can focus on learning and not be paged out of lecture. They have very nice, spacious and cheap housing across the street from the hospital. 6 months in PGY2 are spent at the state hospital so you get great forensic/public psychiatry exposure. Interestingly, intern year, you spend your first medicine month as a "sub-intern" where you basically act like a medical student. (I definitely got the sense that there wasn't a whole lot of autonomy at this program.) One perk is that you are given meal tickets for 3 meals a day, every day! The program seems very family friendly with lots of residents married with children. The facilities are pretty good and the commute from Manhattan on the subway is very doable. You also get a discounted parking space if desired.
 
1. Important questions – Had meetings with the department chair, program director, assistant PD, and one other faculty member. They were all extremely friendly, and excited about the program at Mayo. They asked about why I was interested in coming to Minnesota for residency, what I was looking for in a program, and what I wanted to do in the future.

2. Highlights – Mayo was great in that they provided hotel accommodations for the visit, as Rochester is more out of the way than other places. It really allowed me a good chance to explore the program in more depth and also the surrounding area. The chief resident did a great job of guiding us through the interview day. We had a brief group meeting with the program director at the beginning, then we each got to join a different team for clinical rounds (child, adult or geriatric) which was a great way to see how their services run. Then there was a tour of the facilities, which were probably the best that I have seen on the interview trail with all the patients getting private rooms on the psychiatry wards. At Mayo, the patient truly does come first. This was followed by lunch where several more residents showed up to talk to us. I then had my interviews, followed by a final wrap-up session with the assistant PD. In the evening, there was an applicant dinner at a local restaurant which was really nice. I was thoroughly impressed with the quality of the teaching, and just how approachable the attendings (or as they call them “consultants”) were in my interactions with them. Everyone seemed very smart, but also down to earth people. A bonus opportunity was the chance to stay an extra day afterwards, to check out another clinical service and their psychotherapy seminar. Special child psychiatry and research tracks are available.

3. Estimated Call Hours – For PGY1, q4 on one month each of inpatient family medicine/pediatrics, internal medicine and neurology. No call during ER month, and outpatient family medicine and neurology rotations. For psych months, call usually q6-7 from 5pm-midnight for PGY-1 and 2, with call from 8am-midnight when on the weekend. PGY-3 have overnight call from 8pm-8am q7, with a recovery day on the day following call night. PGY-4s have house call from 5-8pm two times per month.

4. Friendliness – This was by far one of the friendliest programs that I visited, with a definite Midwest feel. The residents all went out of the way to answer all of our questions, and they seemed to get along really well with one another with relatively few complaints about their program. It seemed like living in a smaller town, there was more cohesiveness in this resident group and they were able to meet up to hang outside of the hospital on a pretty regular basis.

5. Location, plusses and minuses – Rochester is a safe, extremely affordable town to do residency. Many of the residents were able to purchase apartments and homes at very reasonable prices even on a resident salary. Of course, the weather is very cold in the winter months, but supposedly summer and fall are supposed to be wonderful in the area. There are plenty of opportunities to do outdoor activities like hiking or skiing, and the Twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul are only about 65 miles away so that is reachable.

6. Most positive aspects – Great clinical training, a lot of emphasis placed on teaching and didactics, amazing facilities, world-class faculty members, low cost of living compared to East or West coast, strong research taking place, good exposure to child and adolescent psychiatry, as well other specialties like geriatric, consult-liaison, and addictions.

7. Most negative aspects – Location is definitely one of the major drawbacks, as Rochester is a bit isolated from everything else. Not much exposure to forensic and community psychiatry, but that is something that they are actively working on.
 
BU
I think there were 18 or so interviewees because they only interview on Saturdays. It was a really odd day for me. I don’t really know what to think. Driving into Boston was ok and parking was ok.
The PD was dressed too casually, which stood out to me during the overview. I interviewed with the chief resident, who acted like a jerk. I don’t know what his beef was. Right after I sat down he said “so what are you doing here?” WTF. I didn’t know whether to state the obvious or ask him what HE was doing there. He was too busy shuffling papers to shake my hand. I could tell that he hadn’t read my PS, and he said that he had.
There were a couple interviewers that I liked. Then there was another weird one. The guy kept asking me which books I had read recently that “touched my soul.” After rattling of 4 or so that I had like, he said “NO, I want to know what touched your soul.” So I gave up and said the Da Vinci Code. He took a phone call and couldn’t shake my hand at the end of the interview.
LOCATION- fine if you like Boston/big cities. The neighborhood didn’t seem particularly dangerous, although there were a few questionables loitering.
The HOSPITAL was claimed to be the largest trauma center in the northeast. Now that I think about it, I’m wondering about Mass General. I thought that was a pretty big place. Anyway, the facilities seemed at least par. One weird thing is that there was no inpatient psych unit. So residents on call did only consults. And they had to consult between two hospitals one block apart. Weird. Their psych facility is a private hospital some distance away.
CALL schedule- apparently there is no overnight call on psych during the intern year. Everyone said that the workload is “very doable.”
PLUSSES: You can do in-house moonlighting/ extra calls for something like 250-400/night, even without taking step 3. So I guess that was good. The residents seemed like a pretty tight group. They did all of their rotations together throughout the 1st year, so they get pretty close, which was nice to see. There is a clinical emphasis, which I appreciated.
MINUSSES- I mentioned a lot of minusses above. I wasn’t impressed with the chief, and if that is who they consider a good leader……… Cost of living is high, obviously. They all complained about having to travel to different sites a lot, which was draining to some.
OVERALL IMPRESSION: like I said, it was odd. I’ll rank them somewhere because I think it would be an ok place.
 
sikegeek said:
BU
I think there were 18 or so interviewees because they only interview on Saturdays. It was a really odd day for me. I don’t really know what to think. Driving into Boston was ok and parking was ok.
The PD was dressed too casually, which stood out to me during the overview. I interviewed with the chief resident, who acted like a jerk. I don’t know what his beef was. Right after I sat down he said “so what are you doing here?” WTF. I didn’t know whether to state the obvious or ask him what HE was doing there. He was too busy shuffling papers to shake my hand. I could tell that he hadn’t read my PS, and he said that he had.
There were a couple interviewers that I liked. Then there was another weird one. The guy kept asking me which books I had read recently that “touched my soul.” After rattling of 4 or so that I had like, he said “NO, I want to know what touched your soul.” So I gave up and said the Da Vinci Code. He took a phone call and couldn’t shake my hand at the end of the interview.
LOCATION- fine if you like Boston/big cities. The neighborhood didn’t seem particularly dangerous, although there were a few questionables loitering.
The HOSPITAL was claimed to be the largest trauma center in the northeast. Now that I think about it, I’m wondering about Mass General. I thought that was a pretty big place. Anyway, the facilities seemed at least par. One weird thing is that there was no inpatient psych unit. So residents on call did only consults. And they had to consult between two hospitals one block apart. Weird. Their psych facility is a private hospital some distance away.
CALL schedule- apparently there is no overnight call on psych during the intern year. Everyone said that the workload is “very doable.”
PLUSSES: You can do in-house moonlighting/ extra calls for something like 250-400/night, even without taking step 3. So I guess that was good. The residents seemed like a pretty tight group. They did all of their rotations together throughout the 1st year, so they get pretty close, which was nice to see. There is a clinical emphasis, which I appreciated.
MINUSSES- I mentioned a lot of minusses above. I wasn’t impressed with the chief, and if that is who they consider a good leader……… Cost of living is high, obviously. They all complained about having to travel to different sites a lot, which was draining to some.
OVERALL IMPRESSION: like I said, it was odd. I’ll rank them somewhere because I think it would be an ok place.
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I interviewed at this program as a MS a couple of years ago and I generally agree. I was not particularly impressed with this program and thought their residents, academic, teaching staff, and overall training questionable. Since beginning residency, i have met with a few of the BU residents on conferences, crisis teams, etc. and find them lacking in work ethics, academic knowledge, and generally detached. Strangely enough, there is no inpt. unit or ECT available at BMC yet they claim to be a major academic hospital. Their inpt. units are at Fuller and the Bedford VA. But this is a university program so I did ranked them at the bottom of my list.
 
1. Important questions – Had meetings with the program director and three other faculty members. Two of the faculty members were a bit intimidating, which made the interviews more stressful than they needed to be. But the other faculty member and the new program director both were friendly. They asked about why I was interested in coming to NYC for residency, what I was looking for in a training program, what made me special or stand out compared to other candidates, detailed questions about my research, and why they should end up ranking me.

2. Highlights – The program director did a good job giving us an overview of the program at the start of the day, and mentioning different changes that he was trying to implement. Then we all split off and had our interviews with the different faculty members. Then there was a tour of the facilities at St. Luke’s Hospital, followed by lunch at a local restaurant with a few of the other residents. The residents I met did seem enthusiastic about the program, and excited about some of the changes that were taking place, including the addition two new child units with 60 beds. The day concluded with individual brief meetings with the program director.

3. Estimated Call Hours – For PGY1, q4 until 10:30pm on medicine months and 3 weeks of night float during psychiatry months. The first several calls in psych are taken with senior residents. The night float system continues in PGY-2 and 3, with calls decreasing in frequency as the residents become more senior. Residents cover only one of the hospitals during each call.

4. Friendliness – The residents that I met with during the day, including one of the chief residents, all seemed to say great things about their experiences at SLR. They really enjoyed working in NYC, and also having the time to enjoy doing things outside of work during their free time. Like I said before, a couple of the faculty members I met with not the friendliest, but that could have just been an exception.

5. Location, plusses and minuses – St. Luke’s is located in the Morningside Heights neighborhood near Columbia University’s main campus, while Roosevelt is located in Midtown near the Lincoln Center. Both locations seems like great places to both work and live. There are tons of restaurants, and it feels relatively safe compared to some other parts of the city.

6. Most positive aspects – Great location on Upper West Side and Midtown, subsidized housing is available near both hospitals, two training sites allows for diversity of experiences, affiliation with Columbia allows for some elective opportunities in 4th year and some of the faculty at SLR hold joint appointments at Columbia, 2 new child units opening up in the near future, nice-sized program with around 8-9 residents per year, very competitive resident salary.

7. Most negative aspects – Expensive to live and work in NYC, slightly less research opportunities than other places.
 
rtennis: thanks so much for all your great nyc interview feedback. you're very comprehensive and i appreciate your insight. i'm looking to match in nyc for 2009, so hopefully i'll be seeing a lot of this next year!
 
My impressions (sorry the formatting's ugly, but I wanted to get all the info on here):

DARTMOUTH

Pros

-awesome PD (my favorite of all the ones I met). he's warm, engaging, and seems to really, really care about residents. I'd say he's somewhat grandfatherly.
-happy, minimally stressed residents. I met residents from all four classes and they all mentioned that they think they get great training but are not overworked. they get along really well with each other.
-good mentorship. seems like you have to seek out some opportunities, but if you do, you're amply rewarded with supportive mentors.
-good call. don't remember the specifics, but it's pretty chill.

Cons

-location.not an issue for me, but if you're single and don't like outdoorsy activities, it could be tough.
-patient homogeneity.not too much racial diversity, though quite a bit of cultural/economic
-lots of sites/possibly a lot of commuting.2 months in PG-2 in Concord, NH, which is about an hour from main campus. also do rotations in VT and possibly elsewhere in NH
-inpatient psych unit at Dartmouth isn't locked.I don't know whether this should be a pro or con. residents said that it helped them develop negotation skills with patients, but it still seems like they might miss out on the really sick patients.

YALE
I really didn't get a good vibe from this program. The residents were okay, but seemed a little distant and quirky to me. The whole day was kind of weird--the program coordinator was really sarcastic, which normally is cool since I'm really sarcastic, but it kind of rubbed me the wrong way in this setting. I just got a very cold/distant vibe from a lot of the people I met. The PD didn't meet with everyone--which was very atypical of my other interview experieces. They also seem to struggle with being in the shadows of NYC and Boston programs.

pros

-lots of opportunities. vague, I know, but they really do seem to have a ton of opportunities in a variety of research fields if that's your thing.
-great child program. they seemed to have a lot of residents interested in child and they apparently get excellent preparation for it.

cons
as above. New Haven isn't the hippest place. definitely one of the more intense programs in terms of call/hours.

UMASS
I talked about UMass pretty extensively in an earlier post. The only thing I'd add is that I got somewhat of a weird vibe from their PD, which was really disappointing because I liked the program otherwise. The PD didn't seem especially interested in learning about me or hearing my answers to the questions he asked. He often interrupted or tried to complete my sentences, which I thought was a bit annoying. It was different from almost everywhere I've interviewed in that I got the vibe that they were pretty indifferent to me. Of course, this is all tempered by all the positives I listed above.

BU
pros

-laid back environment. they made it quite clear that the program is not overly intense. there's pretty minimal call throughout all four years and I think this would be a great fit for someone who wants to avoid overnight call. the PD is also very supportive of those who have kids during residency.
-good PTSD/addictions. their main selling points. really strong training in both these areas.
-pretty happy residents. probably mainly due to the laid back nature.

cons
-no inpatient psych at Boston Hospital. to get inpatient psych experiences, residents have to travel quite extensively and a lot of their experience is at a VA (nothing at all against VAs, I just think they get a skewed patient population)
-I'd tend to agree with some of the stuff said above, no need to rehash it.

LONGWOOD
pros
-fantastic clinical training. really the major selling point of this program. they get excellent pharm and therapy training and had nothing but the highest praise for their supervisors.
-great CL. this is driven by their affiliations with BW and BI. this was something that really stood out to me. they have an excellent reputation at these hospitals
-diverse training sites you really see it all here, community, private hospital, partial hospital, lots of substance abuse, some forensics.
-didactics. universally praised. they have one entire day each week dedicated to didactics.

cons
-stressed residents. I'll preface this by saying that I met residents from all four classes and they universally seemed pretty happy. that said, of all the places I interviewed, these guys were the most palpably stressed/worked/fatigued. they indicated that it was tradeoff they happily made because their training was so good.
-multiple sites. seemed like lots of back and forth between all the training sites in the city. normally I'd say it's not a big deal, but I dunno, driving all around Boston doesn't seem like fun.
busy call. they said they're working on this by implementing a new moonlighting system, but I believe that they cover all consults, inpatients, admissions/ED while they're on call. it sounded crazy busy. call is also pretty frequent the first couple years (q 6-7 throughout if I remember correctly)

CAMBRIDGE
pros
-community psych. I'm sure it's been mentioned before, but this is one of their big calling cards and it also happens to be something I'm really interested in. lots of opportunities to work with homeless and expand treatment settings. specialty clinics for various populations.
-awesome PD/assistant PD. residents couldn't say enough about these two and I have to agree based on my interview day. they were incredibly friendly and approachable and seemed like people I'd be happy to work with/for.
-moonlighting. if it's your thing, you can rack up moonlighting hours and apparently double or even triple your salary.
-happy residents. some of the happiest, least stressed residents I met on the trail. seemed like genuine, nice people I could get along with in or out of work.
-good call. not even much call intern year (other than q4 til 9 or 10 on medicine). it's like q14 PG-2 and qnot often at all after that.

cons
-minimal CL. probably not the best place if you're interested in CL/medical psychiatry. it's a community hospital with lots of "bread and butter" medicine, but not a huge inpatient service.

BROWN
pros
-awesome residents/resident camaraderie. definitely my favorite group of residents. I really liked these guys a lot. they seemed to really love their program. one thing that struck me is the camaraderie they had. they enjoyed doing all sorts of things together in their leisure time, like going to the beach, going to newport, going out to eat.
-chill call schedule. the hardest call (other than medicine intern year) is a PG-2 for 2 months doing night float in the ED. while those months are tough, residents universally said that they felt incredibly competent in their abilities to independently care for patients and confidently make dispo decisions. outside of the nightfloat months, i think there are 5-6 weekend calls PG-2 year. PG-3 call is roughly 1/month.
-multiple sites. am I a hypocrite? I said before for Longwood that multiples sites was a bad thing. well I guess I just think that it's a whole easier to navigate Providence than Boston, so I don't think it's as a big of deal. and I think there's real value in training at the multiple sites (including a freestanding child psych hospital, community hospital, academic medical center, residential psych facility)
-strong CL and child. 4 months of child in PG-2 and 3 months of CL, which was a little more than other places I've seen.
-good therapy and pharm. I'd heard that therapy here wasn't as good as at other programs, but I have to say that the interview day dispelled that for me. it seems like they get excellent CBT, DBT, psychodynamic, and IPT training.
-highly regarded attendings. this struck me, mainly because it was something almost every resident commented on and I hadn't heard this at other programs.


cons
-repetitive didactics. didactics are 1/2 day/week and are supposed to be pretty good, with the caveat that the PG-1 and PG-2 didactics are repeated both years so there's a lot of repetition. seemed redundant. as redundant as me saying "redundant" after saying there's a lot of repetition.

-

MGH-McLean
Wound up liking this place more than I thought I would. The residents were by and large a good group of folks. They were down to earth, friendly, and seemed to genuinely get along well.

pros
-supportive environment. prior to my interview, I was under the impression that they really tried to push residents to do research, but, in fact they seem to be open to helping residents pursuing whatever interests them. they're very open to tailoring the training experience to each individual resident's wants/needs, whether that's basic science research or international clinical work.
-diversity of patients and settings. for my money, McLean and MGH are two pretty opposite (but complementary institutions). MGH of course has complex med-psych patients whereas McLean has more straight up complicated psych patients in a residential treatment setting.
-good attendings. I'm taking the liberty to extrapolate this from my interview experiences, but, honestly, they were some of the most friendly, engaging, and fun faculty I've met with.
I also really liked the community and forensics exposure.

cons
-more intense. like Longwood, much more frequent call than everywhere else. q 4-5 for 3 months as a PG-2! they also had 6 months of medicine intern year with 1 month of ICU. I'm not yet a practicing psychiatrist of course, but I'm not sure how beneficial ICU work is for my future.
-two distant sites. they're about 25-30 minutes apart and there are times when the residents will have to go back and forth several times in a given day. again, my Boston driving phobias are surfacing.
-didactics. I asked a couple residents on the quality and I got the impression that they're decent, but not great.

Them's the highlights, I'd be happy to answer any questions or elaborate if need be.
 
1. Important questions – Had meetings with the program director, assistant PD, one other faculty member and one of the residents. All the people I met for interviews were very friendly, and answered my questions about the program and living in Cleveland. They asked me about my interest in psychiatry, why I wanted to be involved in clinical research, and what my plans were for the future.

2. Highlights – The day started with grand rounds, which was very good. Then there was a very extensive overview of the program given by the assistant PD, which did a great job at describing the different strengths of the program. We all then went on our interviews with the different faculty members and residents. This was followed by a very informal lunch where several residents came by. The day ended with tours of the VA hospital and university hospital by two different residents. The residents I met seemed happy about the program, and really excited about new things like the child unit at the pediatric hospital, and new outpatient offices and facilities being built.

3. Estimated Call Hours – For PGY1, q4 on medicine months and q6-7 at the university hospital for psychiatry months. PGY-2s have q7-8 at the Wade Park VA hospital, and PGY-3 have short call/ back-up call from home q7-8. No call during PGY-4.

4. Friendliness – The residents that I met seemed like a great bunch of people, from many different backgrounds. They seemed to get along really well, and said that they hang out together quite often. The faculty also seemed very responsive to the needs of the residents that came up, which was really great.

5. Location, plusses and minuses – Case Western is located in the University Circle area of Cleveland, which is very safe and has lots of cultural things to do. Many museums are located in the neighborhood, and it seems like it would be a nice place to live. Cleveland is also a very affordable city to live in, when you compare it to East coast places like NYC, Boston or Philadelphia.

6. Most positive aspects – Great clinical training, several different sites to provide diverse experiences for residents, strong research program, very strong forensics and community psychiatry exposure, good child psychiatry fellowship, low cost of living.

7. Most negative aspects – Not much negative to say, as I really was impressed by the program and the direction that they are going. One thing to mention is that the previous training director recently moved back to Texas, so new leadership is transitioning in this year. They seem genuinely excited about taking the role and I think they will do a fine job.
 
1. Important questions – I had meetings with the program director, associate PD, director of the child psychiatry program, another faculty member and two residents. They were all extremely friendly and open to answering all of my questions. Despite having 6 interviews, the day went by pretty quickly and was not too stressful. They asked about my interests in psychiatry, why I was interested in coming to WPIC for training, my thoughts on living in Pittsburgh, and where I saw my career to be going towards.

2. Highlights – There was an orientation meeting the night before the interview day where the program director gave a nice introduction to the program and some of the exciting things that are happening. There was also dinner with the residents at a really nice local restaurant where the turnout was great. The interview day started with breakfast, where there was an additional opportunity to interact with some of the residents and faculty members. Then I had my interviews with the faculty members in the morning. This was followed by lunch, and then a tour of the facilities at WPIC led by the residents. The day ended with my interviews with the residents.

3. Estimated Call Hours – In house call is limited to PGY-1 and 2. Average is q6 for psychiatry in PGY-1. PGY-2 is roughly q10-12. Weekend floor calls are 24 hours. ER calls consist of 12 hour shifts (8:30-8:30). Both PGY-1 and 2 can leave at noon when post-call. Residents do not work on weekends unless on call. No call during PGY-3 and 4! Residents can elect to moonlight during PGY-3 and 4, with in-house moonlighting opportunities readily available.

4. Friendliness – The residents and faculty members at WPIC were some of the friendliest that I met on the interview trail. They all seemed like very intelligent people, yet also approachable as well. Despite the large size of the program, it still seemed like the residents in each class were quite close.

5. Location, plusses and minuses – Pittsburgh may not be the most desirable city to live in, but there is plenty of stuff to do and the cost of living is hard to beat. There are many distinct neighborhoods in the city, and plenty of cultural activities as well. The city is very hilly, and the winter can be quite harsh. But in my opinion, Pittsburgh is not a bad place to live at all and many of the residents said that they could afford to purchase housing on a resident salary.

6. Most positive aspects – Tons of research opportunities, free-standing psych facility with many different units (mood disorder, psychosis, child and adolescent, geriatric, substance abuse, eating disorders, and many more), multiple subspecialty clinics, friendly residents and faculty, affordable city to live in, strong child psychiatry fellowship.

7. Most negative aspects – Some people may not like living in Pittsburgh, but I actually like the city and would be fine living there. Might be too big for some people - 13 general psychiatry, 2 triple board and 2 family medicine/psychiatry residents per year.
 
larousse said:
Here are some (unorganized) notes I took:



Cambridge

It was unclear, though, whether they finish the residency as well-trained as graduates of other top programs.
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In reference to this statement, the PD said that their board pass rates have been cumulatively well over 90% for the past 6-7 years if I remember correctly. Not saying that the ability to pass boards is a 1:1 correlation with being a well trained, competent psychiatrist (in the same way that rocking Step 1 doesn't mean you're a medicine genius), but I think it probably means something.
 
1. Important questions – I had meetings with the program director, 3 other faculty members, and one resident. They were all extremely friendly and welcoming, making this one of the least stressful interview days I have been on. They just wanted to get to know me as a person, what made me decide to go into psychiatry, and some of my volunteer and research experiences from the past.

2. Highlights – We had a great applicant dinner the night before where a few of the residents took us to dinner in town. It was a very relaxed setting, and gave us plenty of opportunities to ask all our questions to them. The interview day began with breakfast, then an overview by Dr. Ronald Green (the PD). He seems like the ideal PD, very responsive to residents as well as being nurturing and supportive. We then had a few individual interviews, which was followed by a catered lunch where we had another chance to talk to some of the residents. What followed was a very unique tour of the campus and surrounding area, being driven around by the PD in his car. The day ended with a couple more interviews, including one with a senior resident.

3. Estimated Call Hours – For PGY-1, have q4 overnight call during the medicine months, but no call during outpatient medicine and ER months. For first 9 psych calls, you will be accompanied by senior resident or attending. For PGY-1 psych months, call averages to be q5-6. For PGY-2, call is q7 overnight. For PGY-3, you take call between 2-3 times per month. For PGY-4, you only have backup call taken from home.

4. Friendliness – This was definitely one of the friendliest residency programs that I got to visit. The resident group shares a great camaraderie, and seemed like they would be a fun group of people to work alongside. The faculty members were also very approachable from what I could tell.

5. Location, plusses and minuses – I like the location in New Hampshire and Vermont, which is a little more rural than most of the programs I applied to. Tons of outdoor opportunities, Dartmouth College undergraduate campus close in Hanover for cultural activities, good quality of life. The location might be too isolated for some people, but only about 1 hour from Manchester, NH and 2 hours or so from Boston.

6. Most positive aspects – Excellent clinical training, amazing facilities, broad experiences (Dartmouth-Hitchcock, VA Hospital, New Hampshire Hospital which is a state-run facility), lots of opportunities to get involved in research (have a research month in PGY-2 and additional time possible during PGY-3), strong focus on community/public psychiatry, neuroscience is strength, fellowships available in most fields, great program director and fellow residents to work with.

7. Most negative aspects – More isolated location, less ethnic diversity of patient population. But overall, I think you would get a really solid training in psychiatry here at Dartmouth.
 
Not sure how helpful this will be to anyone else, but I ranked the programs based on my interview day impressions, as well as conversations with numerous faculty and residents. So there are some obvious biases built into all of this, but I did approach each interview day with an open mind, so I think this is pretty fair:

Strength of the residents
1. Columbia, 2. Cornell, 3. UCSF
4. MGH/McLean, 5. UCLA, 6. NYU
7. Stanford, 8. Seattle


Strength of research
1. MGH/McLean, 2. UCLA, 3. Columbia
4. Stanford, 5. UCSF, 6. Cornell
7. Seattle, 8. NYU

Strength of psychotherapy training
1. Cornell, 2. Columbia, 3. NYU
4. Seattle, 5. MGH/McLean, 6. Stanford
7. UCSF, 8. UCLA

Strength of biological psychiatry training
1. MGH/McLean, 2. UCLA, 3. Stanford
4. Columbia, 5. Cornell, 6. UCSF
7. Seattle, 8. NYU

Didactics
1. Columbia, 2. Cornell, 3. MGH/McLean
4. UCLA, 5. Stanford, 6. Seattle
7. UCSF, 8. NYU

Strength of the faculty
1. Cornell, 2. Columbia, 3. MGH/McLean
4. UCLA, 5. NYU, 6. Stanford,
7. UCSF, 8. Seattle

Administration/leadership
1. MGH/McLean, 2. Seattle, 3. Cornell
4. Columbia, 5. UCLA, 6. Stanford
7. NYU, 8. UCSF

Post-residency careers
1. MGH/McLean, 2. Columbia, 3. Cornell
4. UCLA, 5. Stanford, 6. UCSF
7. NYU, 8. University of Washington
 
Anybody interviewed here? What types of experiences were had? What have others heard of call? Any post-interview contact afterwards? How difficult to end up here?

Thanks.
 
BUMP to see if anyone would like to add their '09 experiences. Many of us would love to hear about them.
 
Funny. I don't know how I found this old one without also finding the newer one. Would have bumped the right one if I knew it was there.
 
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