U of Utah medicine prelim

[caedmon]

Just wondering how a prelim year at this program is. I'm interviewing for PM&R there on a monday, and at LDS for a TY on a wednesday. I'm having a hard time deciding if I should ski or interview on tuesday.

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[Eidolon6]

Just wondering how a prelim year at this program is. I'm interviewing for PM&R there on a monday, and at LDS for a TY on a wednesday. I'm having a hard time deciding if I should ski or interview on tuesday.

Its an academic medical environment coupled w/ the LDS hospital which is more like a private hospital. Consists of 8-9 ward months, 1 to 2 ICU months, a month or so of ambulatory and geriatrics. All hospitals have night float x/ the University still has its terns stay overnight, which is good. All the hospitals are generally pretty busy. Compared to the transitional year at LDS, its probably a bit tougher, but you learn more and you get exposure to the University and VA environments which are quite different.

 

[caedmon]

Also, they tout their technological advancement. Any input on that?

Any other other opinions would be helpful.

 

[Eidolon6]

Also, they tout their technological advancement. Any input on that?

Any other other opinions would be helpful.

The LDS hospital has a very extensive electronic chart commonly referred to as HELP and now a web based version called HELP2. Basically all patient information from vital signs, notes, radiology and lab results as well as even nursing "stool" reports are put into the system. Orders and progress notes are still paper based. They have a couple of papers documenting how the use of their integrated computer system has cut costs and improved care quality. The ICUs at LDS hospital are fully computer integrated and there are computer based protocols for vent mgmt, heparin gtt, insulin gtt, electrolyte replacement etc. The database has allowed the critical care department to churn out a good number of papers. The university has new system called Olympus which is not yet as refined as HELP but has a lot of potential. The university hospital has yet to integrate all of its functions. As for other advances, both hospitals have the typical fair of large tertiary medical centers. Ironically, they do compete w/ one another for business, so literally, you have two 400+ bed hospitals 2 miles away from one another. Still, with a catchment area of 6 states, both hospitals are busy. As for academic powerplants, the University of Utah has a large genetics center (probably a result of the geneological habits of the Mormon population) and is currently in the midst of expanding facilities including a new med school building, eye center and research space. The Huntsman Cancer Hospital, a marble and wood trimmed cancer hospital, opened in July of this year.

One caveat when you interview at LDSH, the HELP system looks like a DOS based program and is not visually appealing (I remember not being too impressed when I interviewed) but it truly is powerful and once familiar, very easy to navigate.