Question from applicant: how to choose a residency??

Personally, I think that the most important thing is resident happiness. If you're miserable, you're not going to learn and you are just going to dwell on how miserable you are. The people who say that it's only 5 years are not realizing that it's 5 years while you are in the prime of your life that you will never get back, you only live once. A good program for residents is one that has a lot of good help, by this I mean NPs/PAs and social work. You don't want to deal with annoying crap all day. Look at how resident's treat each other and the stress level that they are under. At almost any program you can study, do research, and work hard if you want to. Think about where you really want to be in 10 years, if the answer is doing knee/shoulder scopes in private practice, then you are wasting your time going to a malignant academic institution with high volume trauma just because "it will prepare you to do any case." If you want to do total joints, who cares if the program has limited exposure to things like tumor and peds? I know that it gets said over and over again, and I really think that it is the best, but also hardest advice to listen to, but chose a place that fits you best and not a place that is more well known/higher ranked.

"doing knee/shoulder scopes in private practice, then you are wasting your time going to a malignant academic institution with high volume trauma just because "it will prepare you to do any case."[/quote]

In response to ortho103, my best advice is to buy wei fit pilates/yoga and tone up for bikini season.

Every case I do no matter what rotation I am on makes me a better surgeon. Every subspeciality has a unique skill set and you learn how to operate and think from every case you do. SO I would caution med students and junior residents from such simple minded thinking......

You are only as good as your training....and steel forged in the fires of hell can cut through anything....

Plus I work with Jeff Smoker....its like Dukes of Hazzard...and it rains vicodin....

I agree with most of the above points. If the residents look miserable or get confused with which end of the knife to use at dinner the night before, then be assured that you will be too in a couple of years there. It be nice for interview days to be on the days of fx conf so the interviewees could observe how the terns/residents are treated.

Judging a program isn't impossible from a single interview day... as an MD you're trained to get a pretty good feel for a patient in the first 30 seconds of an interview, and so a night-before social followed by a day's worth of tours/interviews/etc is more than enough to get a good perception.

ALSO, make sure to remember your supporting cast. I'm married and part of my ranking criteria was finding a place where my wife would be happy living (which is curiously-close to her hometown/family) and it's worked-out great. You're going to work hard and be on-call "all the time" per your sig other, so make sure you think of him/her/it when planning on where to live. For example, dragging your So-Cal bride to Mayo might be the worst move of your life, as the 88 hours per week you're not claiming to work might be miserable.

You are only as good as your training....and steel forged in the fires of hell can cut through anything....

Plus I work with Jeff Smoker....its like Dukes of Hazzard...and it rains vicodin....

I want to work with you guys.

By now everyone of the medical students has interviewed at all the programs they are considering.

This advice is to be taken with a grain of salt, but here is how I decided on ranking my programs.

1. If you are married, go somewhere your wife will be happy. If she is not happy I see pain ahead for you.

2. Decide if you really want to do academics. If so, you should rule out a few community programs. These programs are usually great and hard to cut from your list

3. Talk to the junior and chief residents at the programs you like. The chiefs will be more honest as they already have their fellowships and can give you advice on how easy it was (or was not) to obtain a fellowship from their program.

4. Location. It helps (at least a little) to train where you want to work

5. Operative experience. This was number 1 or 2 on my list. SOme great programs have you holding retractors for 5 years. ASK THE SENIOR RESIDENTS

6. Gut feeling. This should be number one. If you liked a program and it fit the above criteria rank it high

7. Remember when all is said and done you need to find a location and residency where you will be happy for 5 years. If you are not happy you will have a crappy time and learn less than if you choose a place you like. Do not get sucked in to the "reputation" of the program crap...

Good luck.