The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, February 7, 2008

So, I was going to put up a picture of the medical center for everyone's benefit, but then I ended up forgetting, so alas, no picture. But I know what it looks like!

The city: Obviously I love Columbus. No traffic, affordable living, tolerable weather, things to do. The question I must answer is whether or not I want to stay here for 6 more years.

The program: I also think very highly of the OSU program. The program is huge (like 75 or so faculty), and the residents get great exposure to all the surgical specialities. They also do a lot of endoscopy, which is nice. The residents have a mandatory year of research/advanced degree, so the program is automatically 6 years atleast. All the attendings are super cool. And the hospitals are fantastic as well, including the James, the Ross, and Columbus Children's.

The residents: The residents at OSU are awesome. Fun, friendly, down to earth, midwest folks (I have also heard this from people not from OSU, so I'm not just biased!). They do have to pay for parking ($$) and don't get too much money for food. They also have 2 weeks off during the first year, and 4 weeks off each year after that (but you do have to take all your weeks together during second year, which stinks).

That's all I can think of to say right now. I'm so excited to be finished with interviews! Thanks to the three of you that read this.

I will soon be completing and submitting my Rank Order List, and the waiting will begin.

I think I will continue to use this blog just for fun, random thoughts, as opposed to just my travels. We'll see if I can pick up some more readers...

Almost Finished....

It's hard to believe that I have been in so many freaking airports and so many cities over the past 2.5 months. Since I started this whole shindig on November 13, I have been on 32 different plane flights. The only positive is that I have now mastered the airplane nap, as long as I don't have random people talking to me about the "Tao Theory of Sex and Longevity." Yeesh!

I only have one interview left, which is at Ohio State (aka: no traveling), and is this Thursday, February 7 (aka: miss a day of work). I'm actually pretty pumped about the interview, because I like the OSU program and I've heard that your home interview is much less stressful. Seriously, though, at this point in the game, I could be interviewing at Harvard at UCSF at the same time, and I would have about as much stress as a termite. Yeah, not sure where that came from.

In other news, I started my Surgical Intensive Care Unit rotation today. I'm trying not to judge a rotation based on the first day....because, well, to say it nicely, it was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

Important Dates in my Life:

February 27: Rank list due
March 8: Performing wedding ceremony
March 16: Attending second wedding ceremony
March 20: Match Day
May 24: Attending third wedding ceremony
June 5: Medical School Commencement

Let the countdown begin (or continue, rather)! :)

Maine Medical Center, Portland, Maine, January 31, 2008

The city: The city of Portland, Maine has about 60,000 people, with about 200,000 in the Greater Portland area. I had some free time to walk around the city prior to our pre-interview dinner, and my conclusion was this: Portland is a small, liberal, quirky, hippy, coastal city. It just has kind of a weird feel. It's about 2 hours from Boston, and many people fly out of Boston because it's too difficult and too expensive to fly out of Portland (the airport has a total of 8 gates). According to the residents, there are a lot of other things to do in the area, including skiing and water sports, arts, looking at lighthouses, etc. It is a moderately affordable city to live in, and has this weird rule about no alcohol in the streets (see above sign).

The residents: The Maine Med program takes 4 categorical residents per year, and they seemed pretty happy. Most are from the east coast, although there was a decent number from the midwest, actually, including one from OSU. About two-thirds are married, and 3 of the residents have kids. The residents either live in downtown Portland, South Portland, or in the suburbs. They also like seafood quite a bit.

Sidenote: When we went out to dinner the night before, the other applicant that was there (yes, there were only 2 of us at the dinner, and 3 total at the interview), got the lobster...perhaps I should have gotten the lobster since I was in freaking Maine, but it just kind of creeps me out. When it was served, I just felt like it was staring at me from across the table with those beady little eyes. Freaky. I opted for the lamb, which, in all honesty, was probably the worst lamb I have ever eaten (and I would consider myself pretty much a lamb connoisseur). Atleast I didn't have to pay for it, and the chocolate tort was amazing.

The program: So, the Maine Med program is 5 years straight through, with the option for some research along the way if the residents want it. It is a Level I trauma center (Kimberly I knew you would like this), and because of the area, they tend to get some weird traumas, including moose accidents, people getting wrapped up in lobster and fish nets, and snowmobile accidents. Interesting. It seems like Maine Med tends to train mostly general surgeons, and about 50% go on to group or private practice, and the chiefs that are going on to fellowships this year are heading into breast, endocrine, and MIS.

A Note on the University of Minnesota

So, while I was back up in Minneapolis for my interview at Hennepin County, I headed back over to the University of Minnesota to get a tour (since I missed it last time I was up there). I was very pleased with the tour, and found out that in fact the resident take about q5 call, which better than I thought! :) I was also able to snap a photo, seen above.

I also went to TwinsFest, saw Rambo, and sucked it up in bowling, but those are not to be discussed here... :)

Hennepin County Medical Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, January 25, 2008

The city: I pretty much already stressed how much I love the city of Minneapolis, and visiting again just reinforced this. This time I stayed with my cousins, which was an adventure, and I also went to TwinsFest 2008, another adventure. :) HCMC is literally, right across the street from the Metrodome, which is kind of fun.

The program: So the Hennepin County program is pretty solid at training general surgeons. Even the specialty surgeons at HCMC do general surgery, and part of that is because they only have 20 faculty. The program also has the option of a surgical critical care fellowship between the third and fourth year (this is shared with the University). HCMC gets about 60% of the trauma in the twin cities, and is well known within Minnesota. However, I'm not sure HCMC is known outside of the state of Minnesota.

The residents: The HCMC program takes 4 residents per year, and they are really happy. About half go on to fellowships and half go into practice. During the research year, some residents go other places, since HCMC is not as academic as some programs. There is also one intern that went to OSU for medical school.

Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, January 24, 2008

The city: So, the city of East Lansing is about 4 hours from Columbus, and has an interesting mix of state capital and BigTen college campus feel. A little like Columbus, but not as big. It seems like there are some things to do, and the city is really affordable to live in.

The program: So, the MSU program rotates through two hospitals. The first one is in East Lansing (Sparrow--I forgot to take a picture of it, but you can imagine what it looks like--a tall building that says "Sparrow" on it). The other is McLaren, which is in Flint. Unfortunately, Flint is an hour away, and the residents have to commute for the rotations that they have there (which is about half the time). They don't get housing in Flint, although they do get reimbursed $300 a month for gas. Also, one of my interviewers happened to tell me that MSU's program has a "proposed probation." The residents insisted that "all those issues have been resolved," but it's still up in the air that if I matched there in July, the program could be on probation.

The residents: All the residents seemed like pretty cool midwest folks, and I enjoyed them very much. There is one resident that swore a lot, and (I'm not sure if it's because of this), but another resident kept looking at me and telling me that, "if you're really PC, then this might not be the place for you." Weird.

From East lansing I drover over to Detroit and flew to Minneapolis.

Loyola University, Maywood, Illinois, January 16, 2008

The city: Loyola is actually a little west of the city of Chicago, in Maywood, Illinois. I was also informed that Maywood has the #1 homicide rate in the country (thus the Level I Trauma Center). Obviously there is a ton of stuff to do in Chicago, and most of the residents either live downtown ($$) or in Oak Park.

The program: The Loyola program functions out of their main hospital, a VA hospital, and their private hospital Resurrection. The hospital itself is under a lot of construction (thus the picture), and they are adding 68 new private rooms and some new ORs for a total of 27. Loyola does quite a bit of trauma (for aforementioned reasons), and has a total of 160 ICU beds (including NICU and PICU), so they do a lot of critical care as well. However, they don't do much pediatric surgery (just obtained their first ped surgeon), nor do they do much laparoscopy. There is a two-year research period between the second and third year of residency, and two residents per year have to "go out" to do research so two others can "come back in."

The residents: There are 6 residents at Loyola, and they all seemed to love living in Chicago. They were all very friendly and good at answering questions, and seemed like nice, midwest folks.

Four more interviews--stay tuned! :)

University of Texas-Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas, January 11, 2008

The city: So, UTMB is in Galveston, Texas, which is an island about 1 hour south of Houston. It's pretty much in the middle of the ocean (heh, the definition of an island), and most of the attendings live either just on the mainland or on the bay (which is actually really neat--like you look out their back door, and there's the ocean!). As far as things to do, it's a pretty touristy town, with lots of souvenir shops, etc. Many people come there before departing on a cruise ship. There's not that much to do on the actual island, so people usually head up to Houston. But there is a beach, and I spent about an hour one day walking around on it, and got those first three pictures.

The program: The program at UTMB seems pretty solid. They get a surprisingly high number of patients, because anything outside the circle of Houston comes to UTMB, in addition to the corrections department from the entire state of Texas. They also have the Shriner's Children's Hospital for Burns (fourth picture, above), which apparently is really famous, and the adult burns center has the highest survival rate for burn patients with 90% BSA.

The residents: The five categorical residents at UTMB seem pretty happy. They also seem to have somewhat of a life (similar to all surgery residents, really). About 70% live on the island and 30% live on the mainland.

Disclaimer: I'm writing this almost a week after my visit and without my notes in front of me, so I'm trying to remember as much as I can!

Penn State University, Hershey, Pennsylvania, January 5, 2008

Ok, ok, I didn't get any pictures of the medical center. I guess I was focused on Chocolate World instead....

The program: So the Penn State program has two years of mandatory research, and they are expanding the options, so you can get your masters or PhD or do outcomes research or whatever. All the attendings were pretty cool, and most of them went to Penn State and have come back to work there. The residents do a good variety of rotations, and the hospital is usually over 100% capacity, meaning there are a ton of cases. The Penn State University Milton S. Hershey Medical Center was started with a $50 million Hershey trust. Mr. and Mrs. Hershey have also done a lot of good things in the community, including start an orphanage (Hershey himself was an orphan), and a k-12 school for orphans and other children with family issues.

The residents: There are four residents per year in this program, with quite a mix of ethnicities. They kept saying how well they all support each other and get along. About a third are single, a third married, and a third married with children. They were very friendly, although there were a few that I thought were lacking personality.

The city: The city of Hershey consistently has one of three odors: chocolate, peanuts, or manure--which one depends on how high the clouds are and which way the winds are blowing that day (or so I'm told). Hershey is 12 miles away from the PA capital, Harrisburg, from which it gets a lot of it's trauma. The city of Hershey is also three hours or less from New York City, Philadelphia, D.C., and Baltimore. There is also a huge Amish population (aka: farm accidents) that are served by the medical center. Hershey itself is very safe and family-friendly. This leads me to the conclusion that I would be more keen on Hershey if I was married +/- children. As a single person, it's just not as intriguing...

Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio, January 4, 2008

So, my first interview of the New Year. A little freaky that we are actually in the same calendar year as graduation. Won't think about that right now.

The program: It seems that the surgery program at the Cleveland Clinic is pretty solid. The one thing that bothered me is that the surgical oncology experience is scattered throughout other surgical services, like there isn't a separate oncology service. Not sure why that bugs me, it just does. There are 4 residents per year, and they have a night float system, which limits their call, and they don't pre-round, which is nice. Several residents said this was probably one of the "easiest surgical residencies there is." There are quite a few fellows, but since the clinic is quite literally a monster medical center, they have a ridiculous amount of cases, and everyone gets plenty. The term "clinic" is quite misleading, as the medical center has 39 buildings and miles of skyway (seriously, people walk around it for exercise, see picture). The Clinic also has 36,000 employees! My dad keeps saying, "Case, the Cleveland Clinic is like one of the best hospitals in the world!" Yes, Dad, I know.

The residents: There are four residents per class at the Cleveland Clinic, which is pretty small. However, they were all very friendly and seemed really happy. They were not excited about paying $50 a month for parking, though. Although they do enjoy chips and salsa, to which I can relate.

The city: Hmm, I have to admit I'm not very excited about the city of Cleveland, and I'm not quite sure why. It seems like there are things to do, but it just seems kind of dirty and icky. There are pro-sports teams, but, of course, none of them have Joe Mauer.