top hand fellowships

pgy-4 searching for the elusive shoulder,elbow, and hand mix in fellowship. After asking attendings and searching the aaos book it seems that mississippi, wake forest, san diego, stanford, and triangle orthop assoc in durham are at least advertised as such.
Does anyone have insight on these programs or suggestions for other programs?

As for the Kleinert Institute fellowship at Louisville - it is posted as 8 positions, but including the foreign fellows and 2 ortho residents, there are approx 20 trainees running around. Most US matches are general surgery. Some of the foreign fellows are ortho trained. Big variety of attending styles and personalities. Have specialized hand ER and procedure room. 16 or so attendings. Lost some wonderful attendings to nearby hospital a few years back. - hope that helps

What you are asking for is definately represented at Allegheny in Pittsburgh... try to find someone who trained there or is training there and ask.

any thoughts on Union in Baltimore? Duke? MGH?

In response to your search for 2010 and 2011 hand fellowships, in my opinion the Indiana Hand program is one of the best out there.

They've got 9 or 10 surgeon partners and a great support staff. I interviewed there last year and was impressed with their educational efforts relative to fellow and resident training, publications, etc. DR fractures, elbows, shoulders, sports, tendons, replants, flaps ...they do it all with unbelievable skill and class. They have a complete orthopedic library, cadaver lab, and a couple of knowledgeable medical illustrator guys to help with research figures, PPTs, statistics, etc. Clinical rotations include each physician, IU Medical Center, and Riley Hospital for Children.

Unbelievable place, even if I didn't match.

BB

In September of this year I participated in an unofficial survey of 35 post-hand fellowship graduates from 2005 through 2008. Sliding scale questions pertained to office schedules, automony, range of surgery cases, work loads, facility amenities, in-service conferences, educational resources, etc.

Participants who completed the survey ranked Indiana Hand, Cincinnati, and Phildelphia Hand tied for first place. Both Duke and San Antonio (my match) were ranked as being a close second; then with Mass General, Baltimore, and Brown Univ. coming in an extremely close third.

My opinion is that you can't go wrong with any of these premier programs. Just request an interview (especially with the 2 excellent Midwest programs and of course San Antonio), and you'll come away with a sense of the group's history, the research, educational training, camaraderie amoung the partners, what the city offers, etc. with that particular group. For those ortho residents with youngsters, San I know that Cincinnati has a very nice aquarium and I think that Indianapolis has the world's largest Children's Museum.

Anyone interested in providing updated opinions about this? Perhaps current or recent fellows?