Top 5 Spine Fellowships

[Harrington]

Been at this too long to know there is no real top 5.

Because everyone's interest may be different (academia vs private practice) what are top 5 community and academic spine fellowships to apply to, all else being equal.

Harrington

[Micky]

Top list of academic spine fellowships would have to include

Thomas Jefferson
Emory
Beaumont
Wash U
San Diego (Garfin's fellowship)

There are others like Rush, Miami, Minnesota, etc.

[Harrington]

Agree with top 5. Any thoughts about Mayo Clinic? heard it was a top place

How bout community programs?
Applicants who just matched, feel free to put in your 2 cents.

Harrington

[OrthoDoc]

Anyone looking at spine fellowships should take a look at the University of Wisconsin under Thomas Zdeblick, MD.

[SharpTool]

Orthodoc...what do you know about Zdeblick's fellowship? What's the focus (trauma/degenerative/deformity/peds/tumor)? I know the fellowship has a great reputation, but what is this reputation based on?

[ssaco]

Anyone have info on the spine fellowships at Univ of Pittsburgh and Univ of Rochester? Thanks.

[snowhound88]

I just got done with all the interview trail and I can comment alittle on what I found.

Wash U -- Great academics. If you like deformity (70%) then this is ideal. Dan Riew is awesome also for c-spine.

Twin Cities-- Has to be one of the best community programs out there. Yes I said community. It is essentially a private group who does great clinical research. They operated like crazy, but little trauma. Not as heavy deformity as I had expected (maybe 20%).

Wisconsin-- Dr. Z is awesome, but you are on call every day for a year (bummer) Great mentorship program that is well rounded.

San Diego-- Once a top program, now with alot of problems with keeping staff and Univerisity Hospital not the nicest facility.

Utah-- Fantastic up in coming program, where you split 50/50 with neurosurgery. The ortho department just built a fantastic office with its own OR's. Dr. Brodke and Braun are two of the nicest down to earth people you could ever meet.

The only thing else I would comment on is that those applying next year, put your top choices early in the interview process since you never know when the match will fall apart..... like this year. Of my eight interviews I only got through 5.

[OrthoDoc]

When I did my residency at Wiscy the spine fellowship concentrated mostly on adult issues, from deformity to simple discs. Dr. Zdeblick is extensively into cutting edge spine issues. He frequently is involved in FDA studies for new products. When I left, they were doing a lot of laparascopic fusions with a variety of different cages/bone dowels and bmp. I believe they may be doing some stuff with the artificial disc, but I'm not sure. There are two other staff. Cliff Tribus is a great guy. Does alot of adult deformity. They have also added Paul Anderson since I left so I don't know anything about him. Most of the pediatric spine was done by the peds staff and I'm not sure if that has changed any or not.

I didn't realize the fellow was on call all of the time. When I was there, we rarely involved the spine fellow unless something emergent had to be done like put on a halo or tongs. Very infrequent. Otherwise, we just passed on the spine cases in the morning.

[Harrington]

Can anyone who interviewed there comment on the university of miami spine program?

also is the spine fellowship an actual match process or a phone call and a handshake.

Harrington

[wvubonehead]

Miami is a combined fellowship with neurosurgery with one spot per year. It is run by Frank Eismont, Mark Brown, & Nathan Lebwohl. They do the full gamut of adult spine for ten months, with one week off per month for research. The final six weeks are spent at a separate location doing peds spine. I had heard that Eismont was not a nice guy & the program was malignant prior to my interview, but as with most rumors, it was proven untrue by the very laid back personality of Eismont & Lebwohl (didn't meet brown).

[Harrington]

This message is specifically for wvubonehead-

Thanks for your informative replies.
I have more questions if you dont mind.

1) What are the good community places out there for degen spine?
2) does accreditation matter?
3) OITE scores matter?
4) Research matter?
5) When are the majority of interviews?
6) I heard the match was not likely. Agree or disagree?

Harrington

[hcor72]

Great topic for discussion.

Any answers regarding next year's spine match? Will there be one? Still nothing up on the NASS website.

Also, to add on a few questions:

1) Any thoughts about deformity / degenerative as far as fellowship? anyone heard the argument that a good deformity surgeon can tackle trauma / degeneration?

2) Reputation of NYC fellowships? HJD, HSS?

Thanks for responses.

[orthoindy]

I just finished matching into Spine this year
I agree with some of the other posts regarding the concentrated fields within spine itself. You should think about what field you would like to focus on.
For example
Scoliosis: I think the most ground breaking stuff is coming from Akbarnia at UCSD and the VEPTR work of Robert Campbell, MD at University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, TX
iF your interests lie in degen/deformity and are looking for an incredibly diverse and challenging case load: You will undoubtedly find the best training at UCSF under Sig Berven and Serena Hu, Bradford is still involved but to my understanding in more of a research setting
If your interests lie in degenerative/adult spine/MIS/disc: think in terms of who is leading the industry right now , and who is teaching others how to do these incredible procedures. For example J. Regan wrote the book on it, Delamarter is a leader in the field and has a great program in Santa Monica, J Wang from UCLA is one of the more vibrant fellowship directors out there,
Trauma: You should really see what Vaccarro is doing in this arena. His research is setting the pace for how we will classify and approach spinal trauma in next decade.
Peds & Tumor: most programs tend not to focus on this but will give you training on each throughout the course of your year

On my interview trail I found things were also subdivided btwn the programs where you are a PGY6 (still rounding with residents, doing the cases with residents and at some programs I was basically told we're here for you the fellow and the residents realize this and they will take care of your pts), other programs were on a more mentorship level without any residents, and still other programs were "gentleman programs" (where you sit back , pickand choose your case load from whats available and what interests you and call is pretty much nonexistent)

Now on my interview trail I also found some diamonds in the rough
Baylor is definitely a solid program with great experience and case load, with a great eye for where the future of spine research is headed.

some things that I can update people on/my advice/stuff I wish I knew....

1 Northwestern no longer has a fellowship P.M. has retired but its still listed as such
2 Beaumont has an opening in their Spine Fellowship under Herkowitz for the 2005-6 year (last I heard)
3Some program will have a real hard time getting back to you if ever:for example Phoenix, Stanford, Im only listing these to let you know maybe the contact infor they list is not accurate who knows, theyre good programs but if you cant contact them thats a problem. Alot of places Im still waiting to hear if I have an interview or not (i.e. dont hold your breath)
4 Applications are free
5 Alot of programs send you the application in PDF format so work now on getting from someone ADOBE PROFESSIONAL not just Adobe reader b/c you may need to scan stuff in to type on the forms
6 Organization is the name of the game. Get on your computer make different folders for each program. CHange the folders color once the application is complete, change the folders icon once you got an interview,etc
7Some programs you will really have to stay on top of to see if your letters of rec/personal statement ever made it , for some reason the mail got lost enroute or in their office so be in good with the secretaries of the people you have writing your letters so she can fax them a copy of your letter
8Nass interviews are a good way to crank out alot of programs at once for us as residents, but it obviously makes more of an impact to visit the program in person b/c lets face it This is more about you checking the place out to determine if its what You wans as much as if they like you
9 OITE scores are rarely if ever brought up (for me never)
10 Some programs (Virginia) asked for SAT and MCAT scores
My take on anyone asking for anything was as follows. If you give them the information then its fair game. If you look at the AAOS website thats what they tell us , the OITE is not to be used for these purposes but if we give up our scores or MCATS then you put yourself out there. Let me tell you all the programs that asked for that stuff or Medschool transcripts or Med School Dean Letters I never provided it and STILL got the interview and STILL got offeres from some of these places so dont sweat it, this is more of a job interview and like I said its you evaluating them to see if you like them as much as they like you
11 Some interviews are all day events. One I went to from 6am to 10pm. And you hang with them all day in clinic or whatnot, where you can see them in their environment and really get to know the fellows. So dont necessarily schedule your flights to leave at 1pm b/c theres no guarantee youll be done by then sometimes
12 All the good Cali programs interview on the same week. For example Watkins Cedars Delamarter UCLA UCSF
13 Interviews usually happen during the 3rd rotation, some come during the second, and you should leave the first rotation of the year easy so you can do applications, get your letters lined up etc (were on 7-8wk rotations)
Phone calls can help obviously (but I did it without needing one/any)
14 If you cant interview on one day for whatever reason call early and see if they can reschedule you for later, also CALL/EMAIL and cancel everyone else once you've accepted a spot so you can free it up for your buds
15 The only thing we can do to tip the scales is to know what each other is doing. By this I mean dont treat the other candidates as competition, at my interviews I grabbed as many phone no s and emails as I could that way when decision time rolled around I called my boys and found out where they were ranking and figured out who I was doing my fellowship with based on this. This can be a real source of power
16 I hope this has helped, I wanted it to. If you have any personal ? email me pedicle@gmail.com

[orthoguyca]

The fact that Spine Fellowship under Herkowitz (in Michigan) is still unfilled speaks for itself. Last year they did not get anyone and therefore selected a foreign medical graduate. Dr. Herkowitz has a impressive resume but that goes not help YOU at all. I cannot get into specifics but there is a lot of cheating too. I therefore suggest that we should stay away from it.

[orthoindy]

Well from my understanding
They did have a fellow who was selected and matched
but he was a military appllicant
The problem with the military is you dont know until later in the year if you are allowed to do a fellowship (in a given specialty) or if you have to go work at a base to pay off your time.
Well since spine is such an early match, by the time the military guy found out he couldnt do spine as a fellowship per the military, it was too late for Beaumont to find anyone, b/c by then everyone had filled.
Now as for Beaumont its a surgical powerhouse. They just built more ORs, they have residents (3/yr) and more than enough cases to go around, strong research opportunities. As far as Herkowitz he is well known nationally so after your fellowship with him he should be able to pick the phone up and find you a job.
As for cheating those are pretty strong allegations, especially the way you just throw them out there without an explanation, and Im not sure the purpose of this forum is to smear a place where you rotated at/worked at but those are my two cents.
Does this have anything to do with this last week being match week? Was the date of this posting from Black Tuesday? Oh wait, it was