Top 5 Spine Fellowships

Micky, sent you PM.

Thanks

bump...

What are some programs that people are impressed with this year so far?

liked stanford a ton, but they already filled for 2009. carragee is the man, and zuckerman is a bread and butter machine.

uc davis is solid but beat the tar out of you. also benson is retiring, leaving a gaping hole. he would usually be in the lounge during most of the fellow cases. gupta and roberto are great guys, plus new faculty arriving from case this summer.

vancouver, bc, is interesting. very busy, protected research time, dabble in the canadian health system. kick ass city if you love the great outdoors.

surprised this thread is so weak...

maybe the lack of a match is keeping people quiet...

rocket

Having been on the spine interview trail recently, can feel pretty good about what's going on out there...

In my opinion, there are really four outstanding academic fellowships out there, with the fifth depending on where you want to live and what you want to focus on, etc.

None of them are perfect, but focus on creating academicians and offer a great training experience...

The top four, not in any particular order...

- Jefferson: very trauma heavy, minimally invasive experience limited, deformity experience not as good as other places. Fellows do not round - just OR, clinic, and research. Great faculty, good neurosurgery experience.

- Wash U: very deformity heavy. Fellows do big cases with great faculty. Fellows work harder here than at any other program, doing tons of scut (like writing for TPN) and also take general trauma call. No real minimally invasive experience.

- Rush U: very little hot trauma, but moderate cold trauma. Very degenerative and deformity heavy. Great faculty and great minimally invasive experience for an ortho fellowship (these fellows felt more comfortable than any others I met doing microdiskectomies, paraspinal approaches, etc.). Very good basic science set-up with plenty of NIH funds.

- Emory: surprisingly, very little trauma. Excellent faculty, very deformity and degenerative-based. Good research opportunities and great faculty made up or ortho and neurosurgeons. Cannot comment on their minimally invasive experience.

Number 5 can vary on who you ask...some of the names that come up: Washington(Seattle), Pittsburgh, Cleveland Clinic, UCLA, UCSD, NE Baptist, Twin Cities Spine Center, Miami and Case Western....again, none are perfect but all pretty darn good and would not mind training at any one of them for an academic career.

Of note, there are only about 50 people going into spine this year and about 10 to 15 really outstanding candidates...so....it's a really messed up system without a match so be careful who you commit to....

If you have any questions about a particular program, please PM me....

What are you basing "10-15 really good candidates" on? Do you have access to CV's? Just curious. I agree though, this entire process is a mess that needs to be fixed.

Other impressive programs...Leatherman, NYU/HJD, Utah.

Two reasons for this claim...

1. Asked several program directors - including the fellowship director at my med school, fellowship director at my residency, and at some of the programs I visited and got calls from when discussing the reason for interview dates moving up and up over the last few years...also asked current fellows at multiple programs...there is definitely a drop off in quality after candidate #15 or 20.....

2. Met the same group of people at my first few interviews...as they accept spots, they stop interviewing and others get invited or get spots...you meet the same people over and over at the interviews for the top programs...as the interview season goes on and on, the candidates are less and less impressive as the top candidates accept spots and withdraw applications....just talk to the fellows and program directors why they hate being one of the later interviews instead of one of the first...

I am sure those who have interviewed over the last two years have had a similar experience....