Review Summary

100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
Times	1	3	0	2	0
Rating	1	2	3	4	5

Add your own Review!

Intern Overall Rating: 11-Jan- 2004 Teaching: Atmosphere: Research: Schedule I am a pgy-1, intern, and that's all I will say for now as I still have 6 months to go to finish and I do not wish to jeopardize that. I just wanted to write an objective and true statement regarding this hospital. My typical day begins at 7am and generally ends approx 4-5pm depending how fast you are. There are multiple, needless, pointless, and excrutiatingly painful rounds that one must attend throughout the day which one learns nothing, but just wastes precious time. Generally, there is a lot of scut here, more than the average hospital that I've rotated through. The call schedule is generally up to the one who decides to write the schedule. It could be anywhere from Q 2 days to Q week with no way of possible determining it in advance. Basically, it's all up in the air. There is really no electives here outside ID and neuro. When you come here, it's just work and don't expect anything else. Teaching The faculty here are, for the most part, businessmen and that's as far as I will take that. It seems that you, as a pgy-1, are constantly hounded by social workers, case managers, quality assurance, independent case assessors, patient care representatives, ect. to discharge patients, some of whom need to be in the hospital longer, for financial reasons. What I've learned here so far, is how long to keep a patient with COPD in the hospital. It's all about the cash, and that's it! Basically, this program is full of managers, leaders, CEO's, co-directors and of course we, the residents, are the factory workers ready to jump when told to, and that's the bottom line. It seems everyday we're getting another co-director here who pretends to make a difference, when in reality, no one knows what their job really entails except to make our lives more miserable. Dealing with some of these attendings here is an absolute waste of time. Some are downright abusive and nasty, most plainly don't give a shi* about you, and some, I honestly believe, are out to hurt you. I really feel that some attendings here wake up in the morning with the hope of catching some poor resident off guard with some menial, trivial problem, and abuse them thoroughly. It makes their day, and that's the real truth. There are perhaps one or two attendings who really care and are easy to speak with and ready to help. I do feel bad for them for they do deserve better than this. The didactic sessions here are a waste of time, to sum up the sessions: "who's the attending?" and "Let's call the attending and discharge the patient." That's basically the essence of the didactic sessions. Atmosphere Well, to be honest, everyone here is in the same sinking boat, so the comaraderie amongst the residents is just fine. There is a bigger percentage of foreign grads here, but to be honest, they are some of the most brilliant residents that I have ever met before in my life, ones that can easily match wits with any top resident from any top program in America, but unfortunately for them, are confined to a program that really has no clout outside of staten island, and downtown brooklyn. When applying for a fellowship, you're on your own, and many of the top residents are stuck doing a pgy-4 chief year while re-applying for a 3rd time for the fellowships they want, and really deserve .As far as life outside of work, well it's essentiall non-existant. Besides a yearly christmas party, there is no attempt by the management to bring anyone together for any activities outside the hospital. This is what really bothers me, because here you will work very hard, and that's really all the management wants from you, and then you go home to dwell in your sorrow alone, until the next morning when you have to work again. Conclusion My conclusion, if you have any goals of pursuing a fellowship for cardio, GI, heme/onc, don't come here. Plain and simple. If you already have a plan to go into radiology, anesthesia, ect. and you need a place to crash for a year and then move on, then this would be a nice place to attend, because within the first month of starting your internship, you will learn that it is better for you not to give a damn, and then you just coast through, unabated. This program can be likened to a grammar school classroom where if you just keep your head down, don't establish eye contact with anyone, and just do the bare minimum, then you should be just fine. Now, in the event that you decide to come here, please heed this advice: don't overexert yourself! Don't do more than the bare minimum because no one cares, believe me. I promise you that if you hear from the program director or co-directors here, it will mean that you screwed something up and prepare yourself. Bottom line: great for prelims, lousy for categoricals.

PGY2 Overall Rating: 13-Nov- 2003 Teaching: Atmosphere: Research: Schedule We usually work 7AM-4-5PM. ER is very busy and ICU/CCU calls are tough. Some interns are not doing a good job and you waist your time supervisisng them. However the flors are OK if you have a good team. Teaching Well I am one the Lebanese residents mentioned in the previuos reviews. I think the Lebanesee majority here is the best part of the program. I felt that I was the best intern and resident in my class. Although, because of the awkward visa policy I was stuck back in my country last year. Atmosphere I want to go into cardiology and I feel qualified for that, however I realize that the reputation of our program could be an obstacle as well as my visa status. In addition our cardiology department does not have a good teaching and mostly use you for scut. Some attendings here are problematic: one of the pulmonologists speaks about news and cookies on the rounds more than about medical issues another who is an intensivist can be overtly intimidative to the house staff. However, I think that this program is reasonable except for the favorism the administration is showing for Jews, especially so called Sabath program. They also do not like when you complain about that. Conclusion Concerning the previuos reviews, well, the Lebanese are the majority here, it's our place. You have to get along with us here or may have a hard time. That's the reality if you don't like it there are a lot of other programs in the city... Over all it's not the worst program although not the best one.

Intern Overall Rating: 07-Nov- 2002 Teaching: Atmosphere: Research: Schedule First, I'd like to start out by telling you a little about who I am. If you have read the other reviews, you'll see why I feel the need to do this--this is a diverse program and it is obvious that different groups feel differently about it. I am a prelim intern, and graduated AOA from an American medical school. OK, on to the actual review. The schedule here is good, with days starting around 7:30 and ending at 4. I never get out past 4; I am doing one of the floors this month and have actually been done with my work most days by the early afternoon. I go to all conferences and rounds, with no resulting problems in my schedule. Call averages q4-5, but sometimes you will get calls in bunches and then have a week without call. I have never personally violated the NY state work hours rules. There is a night float that takes over floor responsibilty at 9 pm on Sun thru Thurs. This month, a new schedule was instituted in which Friday call is split in two (one intern covering from 4 to 9 and one overnight) and Saturday call is only 12 hours (one intern doing day shift and one doing night shift). I think that it worked out very well. You wind up with more weekend calls, but they are a lot less stressful and do not ruin the entire weekend. The only problem is that the interns on electives or at the other hospital (South site, which we rotate at for one month out of the year) have to cover some calls on the weekends, so they were unhappy. The way I see it, I'd rather be covering a floor than a unit, which happened before when you were on elective--so you still may get a unit call, but at least there's a chance that all your calls won't be in the unit. Also, most of the months are floor months, so most of the time you are benefiting from the new system rather than being hurt by it. I don't know if this is going to be permanent or not, but we can all hope! I really think that scut is minimal; this month I only drew blood once (for stat cardiac enzymes), and I put in maybe 3 IVs that the nurses had tried and couldn't get. The only real time-waster is looking for charts, and I imagine that that is a problem everywhere. Teaching Like any hospital, there are good and bad attendings. I think that there are more good than bad here. The hospitalists are excellent, are very available and are always willing to discuss patients, whether or not they are directly involved in their care. Most outside attendings are easy to contact and have clear care plans in mind. Noon conference is kind of hit or miss, but in general you can take something useful away from it. And at least there is food there so you are guaranteed a lunch break (by the way, the food is ok, but not great). Teaching rounds are at 11 am on each floor, and noon conference is obviously at noon, so you are in a learning atmosphere from 11 to 1. During this time, you are not supposed to answer calls from the floor--it is the chiefs' responsibility to handle problems that occur then. So you don't have to worry about missing something that you are really interested in. There are other rounds thruout the day, and of course you learn on the floors while taking care of your patients and discussing them with seniors and attendings, but the main teaching is from 11 to 1. Atmosphere I can honestly say that I enjoy the time that I am here most days. I am friends with nurses, clerks, senior residents, fellow interns, and I even consider some attendings to be friends of mine. The lebanese residents are from the top of their programs, and are very smart and very competent. I have never had any trouble getting help when I needed it. In reference to what another review said, I don't think that the prelims here are weak. As previously stated, I graduated AOA and I know that another prelim from my school that is here did as well. All the other prelims I know are very competent. So there. I definitely have a life outside of work, and enjoy going out with the people that I work with when we are off. Conclusion In reference to the first review posted, I would just like to say that any program is awful the first month. You are starting a career, and a difficult one at that. It takes time to hit a stride and to learn how to deal with the system and the stress that comes with being a doctor. I think that, after you get the hang of ordering labs, learn what tests you have to talk to attendings about before ordering them, learn how to correct a PTT, etc., this program is pretty easy (gasp!!). I do agree with the other reviewer who said that the radiology department here is difficult to deal with, and I think that that is the main drawback of the program. You sometimes have to wait for days for a routine film to be read and reported on the phone system--otherwise, you have to go to the file room, wait forever for them to find the film, then find a radiologist who is willing to look at it for you. Overnight there is no radiologist in the building, so sometimes you get stuck having a film that needs to be read and no one to read it. I think that this hospital is a good place to learn. If you are a prelim, in my opinion you shouldn't be looking for the easiest program, because then you won't learn any medicine and you will be handicapping yourself. I also don't think that you should pick a difficult program and kill yourself for a year. I am very glad that I decided to come here--this program is very good as far as teaching goes, I feel like I am surrounded by friends, and I really don't work that hard and have minimal scut. Feel free to email me.

PGY2 Overall Rating: 16-Oct- 2002 Teaching: Atmosphere: Research: Schedule I was not eager to write about this program, but I am upset about the inaccuracies about it in the last 2 reviews here. One is overly negative and the other makes up good things about our program. The first review is probably by one of the jewish residents who has had bad experience here and is taking it out on the lebanese residents unfairly because she is prejudice. The second review was written by a member of the administration here and there are many inaccuracies that can be pointed out in her review. I want to give the honest view of a senior resident in the program. Typical day is 7am until you finish your work. No one can leave earlier than 4pm. Some days you will be done before 4pm and just waiting to get home. Some days you will get stuck at work covering for people till as late as 10pm. But this is residency, so you deal with it since it same everywhere. Expect to work very hard here, harder than most other programs. But when you work, you learn and that is the purpose of residency. There is a night float everyone must do for a month, so you only get overnight calls on weekends. Only bad thing about call system here is they give a lot of favoritism to "certain ethnic group" of residents. They do not have to do saturday and friday calls, the hardest ones, so the rest of us get stuck with an unfair amount of them. That is my only complaint, otherwise call is about 9 calls a month, but it can be different depending on rotation and if chiefs like you. Not fair, but that is way real world is sometimes. Teaching Faculty is diverse. Many have done residencies here so feel strong ties to program. The bad side of this, is that there are many very bad attending who do not care at all about teaching, but because they graduate from here they allowed to me on teaching staff even though they just use the residents for work. Most learning is not from the attendings, but it is from your senior residents. You learn mostly by doing a lot, this is a very busy hospital so you will see many patients. So you will see everything. It can be tough to find time to read though, since there is much scut to be done. I hear they are trying to fix this. Conferences range from worthless to great. Problem is a lot of residents do not come to conference because they have a lot of work to get done and want to finish before 4pm. This is mainly the 1-year residents who will be going into other programs after internship. They do not care about learning, give this impression to attendings, thus they teach the 3-year residents less when they see poor attendance. The 1-year residents are the worst part of the program. They are usually american medical grads who are from bottom of their programs and only here cause they think it will be easy program. Then when they find out it is not easy, they decide to make it easy by cutting out the important education aspects of program. The 1-years also require more supervision by the seniors since they not strong interns, thus taking away from our learning time. Atmosphere Most people get along well here. Despite what first reviewer said, there is no tension between americans and lebanese, this is made up entirely. It is true after 1st year it mostly lebanese and I can see how this can be uncomfortable for others, but this is the administrations fault. Most of non-lebanon 1st years are 1-year people, so they gone after the first year. They should stop taking 1-year people just so they can advertise they have lots of american residents, but instead diversify and take residents from many other countries as 3-years. And they will get much smarter and harder working residents this way too. Not a bunch of radiologist who don't care about medicine and leave in a year. There is not much time out of work as a 1st or second year but it better as third year. If you afraid of working hard, do not come here. You won't like it and we do not want you. Another thing they need to fix is to decrease the time senior residents spent in ER doing admissions. It is very hard to superviƒse interns on floor while spending all time doing admissions. Conclusion Good: Many smart residents, nice to live on staten island, lots of independence, very large turnover so see a lot of different things Bad: Administration can be dishonest and show favoritism in schedules, jewish residents get very easy schedules so rest get very hard ones (maybe this why they think we anti-semetic, cause we complain about this), many 1-year interns who just do not care about program, radiology dept organization is inefficient Something to keep in mind when applying to here, is this is not the best program but it also not worst. It is a bottom teir program but it not at the bottom of the bottom. It will mostly be foreign medical grads here, but most FMGs will be smarter and harder working than US grads at top programs. If I could reapply I think I would. Though, I would have applied to more programs too because I think I could have gotten into more teaching oriented program with less scut. But they are fixing this here and I think it be better in future. Still, to be honest, it hard to get into fellowship from here cause not a big name place. I welcome questions and wish you luck this year in applying.

PGY3 Overall Rating: 30-Aug- 2002 Teaching: Atmosphere: Research: Schedule I am a PGY3 at Mount Sinai medical center, however, during medical school I rotated through Staten Island University Hospital for most of my rotations. I have personally been very impressed with the quality of education and the dedication of the residents to teaching the medical students and providing professional and empathetic care to patients. The typical day of a resident at SIUH is arriving at 7:30am to round on new patients and the day would typically end for most all residents at 4pm. The day would be filled with attending rounds, noon conferences and dispersed teaching sessions throughout the day. The typical intern would have about 8-12 patients and calls were q4-5 days. The night float came in at 9pm so the person on call would typically get his last admission no later than 9pm and would leave by 10:30pm. The hospital has good ancillary staff which obviates the need for residents wasting their own time placing IVs or drawing blood. This made a great difference in freeing up time for important things such as learning, reading and providing patient care. The residents have time to actually use the library to read journals, books or to use the computer system. There was very little scut but scut is work and that is part of any program anywhere. CXR and CT scans could only be viewed by going to the radiology suite but in that regard reviewing these things with a radiologist is more valuable than just holding the film up to the light and scratching your head. They results are readily available on the dictation system so if taking five minutes to go to the radiology department was inconvenient this was a great alternative. I did electives in ID, Pulmonary, Cardiology, Renal, critical care as well as my core medicine rotation. I was very impressed with the education that the attendings and residents provided. Teaching One of the strong points of this program is its dedication to excellence and providing its residence with the knowledge and experience to be well rounded physicians. I have not seen any other program dedicate so much time to teaching its residents. There are morning attending rounds with opportunities to present new cases and discuss relevant topics. They have noon conferences where they invite faculty from the hospital as well as universities from around the US to discuss topics ranging from bread and butter medicine to the latest and newest break throughs in medicine. They have a journal club that the residents must read approximately eight new articles a week for a discussion. This is a great way to learn how to review the literature, how to present an article, how to learn if the information presented will or will not help you in your own medical practice and why, and this is a way to learn how to maintain up to date medical knowledge in a forever evolving feild. Also one afternoon a week is dedicated to reviewing the basics from Harrison. Topics are reviewed and questions are discussed with a specialist from that feild overseeing the session. During the PGY3 year, the residents meet every morning MKSAP/Harrison question reviews and on every Friday a specialist attends these sessions to review questions and a certain topic. Also every week they have a picture board that has about ten pictures of physical findings and a question. These quizzes help in everyday physical exam findings and prepare you for Board exams. The attendings are very approachable and friendly. They provide good teaching and support. They will challenge you to think and formulate your own plan instead of dictating what will be done. They foster independence and confidence. There are a few passive attendings but no residency would be complete without them. They provide a valuable example of how not to be. Atmosphere The camaraderie among peers seems to be sincere. It is a very laid-back program. People are there to learn to be doctors and to treat patients. They help each other out. The attendings for the most part are welcoming and friendly. They veiw the residents as colleagues. They provide guidance and encouragement as well as good role models. They are there to help the residents obtain their goals. The hospital itself is nice. It is a clean and friendly community hospital that is affiliated to a University. It has a Burn center, it is a trauma center, it has a state-of-the-art cardiac center and it has a progressive Board of directors that is always looking for ways to bring this hospital to the forefront of medicine. It is a flexible and attentive environment and they take pride in there diversity. The Director personally knows every resident and is instrumental in placing his residents in fellowship programs. The Director is constantly bettering his program. This program has the top students from foreign programs as incoming residents as well as strong local grads as prelims and residents who observe the Sabbath and need a program to fit their needs. This program allows for the Jewish residents to have the privilege of every Jewish holiday off as well as the Sabbath (Friday nights and Saturday) during which time their other colleagues must cover. The residents do have time to "have a life". It is not uncommon for them to get together after work or on weekends to play soccer or basketball. Many of the residents have families or start families during their residency. Conclusion Stand outs of this program-> 1. teaching is extensive and prepares you for the Boards and for practicing medicine. 2. the diversity of the residents enriches the learning experience. 3. the Director is very attentive to the needs of the residents and he meticulously reviews the program to make sure that it meets the needs of a physician in an constantly evolving field. 4. the flexibility of the program to meet the needs of the residents. 5. the opportunities to moonlight during the 2nd and 3rd year are abundant and feasible. 6. the atmosphere is very welcoming and becomes your second family. 7. 100% success rate on the boards 8. many opportunites for research are available. 9. fellowship opportunities are readily available placing people in such places as the Mayo clinic, Mount Sinai, Oschner, NYU, SUNY Brooklyn and many others. 10. Call rooms are nice and clean. Drawbacks-> 1. It is a community hospital but is is affiliated with a university and it is a Burn/trauma center. It is designed to meet the needs of the community that it is in, for example they just finished a cardiac center to meet the needs of this area. 2. All notes and orders are hand-written. 3. Radiology is only on the PAX system in the ER and not yet available in the units or the floor (the plans are in motion). Most residents feel well prepared after residency for practice or for pursuing a fellowship. Overall, it is a well rounded program.