Does anyone have input about the residency program at UTMB. They were hit by hurricane Ike in late 2008, but in general what's the program like compared to Baylor and UT-Houston?
Does anyone have input about the residency program at UTMB. They were hit by hurricane Ike in late 2008, but in general what's the program like compared to Baylor and UT-Houston?
I'm a MSIII at UTMB, so I can respond a bit to the question, but I'm not fully knowledgeable about the internal medicine program because I'm one of the students who decided to go on the Houston track, which means that I did most of my clerkships in the medical center and St. Joseph's in downtown Houston.
Everything Moonglow has said is correct. When I compare my experience to those of the Baylor students and my colleagues who did internal medicine back in Galveston, I feel that UTMB is still weaker. We lost a lot of good faculty members, and the patient load is still not the same as it was before. That being said, they are working very hard on re-hiring a lot of faculty and TDCJ always provides us plenty of patients with lots of good pathology. The internal medicine residency director, Dr. Goodgame, is my advisor for the upcoming application year, and he is amazing. I think he will do really good things for the program, and from what I hear it's not a malignant program at all.
I hope this helps!
I love Goodgame! That guy is so awesome. I was devastated when he decided to move to UTMB from Baylor. You bastards.
I take it you went to Baylor? If so I wondered if you could provide some answers to a few questions about the IM program. I want to come back to Texas but have heard of somewhat bad reps from Baylor and UTSW. My questions are:
1. What is the support system like? Do they toss you in and its either sink or swim?
2. Is there adequate teaching? What percentage of residents pass the boards?
3. Do they histories of firing residents? ( I ask because they seem like such large programs, maybe they get lots of labor and then get rid of some each year)
4. Is there adequate time for research?
5. Do they comply with 80 hr wk requirements?
1. Yeah, it's one of those sink or swim programs as you put it. You have to do a lot of learning on your own. They don't baby you.
2. The teaching is good, depending on what attending you get. Just like at most places. I want to say the large majority pass the boards. I haven't heard of anyone failing.
3. I have also never heard of a resident being fired.
4. There is plenty of research to be had. You will have time on certain months of of cushy electives.
5. They do their absolute best to comply, but there is a sense of the old school residency here. First, don't leave your patients high and dry, then if you can do your best to comply with your hours.
Hope that Helps.
I am surprised by the negative input about Baylor. What about UT-Houston and Methodist? Thanks.
"Negative" is in the eye of the beholder. BCM offers excellent exposure to very sick patients with a wide range of diseases in multiple treatment settings (county, VA, private) with a large faculty made up of many well-known clinicians, educators and researchers. The workload is probably slightly higher than some other programs.
TMH is probably a "nicer" place to work and has better hours overall, but you are sacrificing some independence and breadth of experience to work there.
UT-H is similar to BCM in many ways, but my impression is that many of the residents there tend to be less satisfied than at BCM, they work harder on certain rotations, have more faculty who are less than progressive in terms of how they treat housestaff, and their institution overall probably has less prestige than BCM (although that is subject to change in the near future with some ongoing instability at BCM that may be for the positive or negative... right now it's hard to say)