Teaching:  | Atmosphere:  | Research:  |
Schedule
Variable. CP months are light, most residents can leave hospital by 5 PM. AP months are more difficult. Surgical pathology can keep residents inhouse until 10 PM.
In general residents spend too much time cutting. Recently there have been valid complaints concerning hours on surg path. The responce from the department was to reduce the number of cases residents preview for sign out. Thus many cases that are grossed by residents are sent directly to attending and never reviewed by the residents, including many small biopsy cases. A better solution would have been to hire another PA for help with the cutting burden.
Teaching
Faculty are mostly junior and there is a tremendous rate of turnover. The only really good teacher is the chair, Dr. DeLellis who is retiring at the end of 2010. One first yr resident recently transferred to Presbyterian in NYC.
Another issue with teaching is gynpath, dermpath and GU. Gynpath goes to another hospital that we dont spend enough time at to learn the material. Dermpath completely left the department and is signed out by faculty who are within the department of dermatology, we only spend 1 month on this service and the faculty are too busy to teach. We have very little GU at RIH, it mostly goes to another affiliated hospital which limits exposure.
Teaching is informal with a few didactic sessions and a few scheduled microscope sessions.
Atmosphere
The fellow residents are enjoyable. Everyone is very nice. Most of the residents are FMGs
Physical environent is very nice. Cutting room is recently renovated.
Conclusion
Drawbacks:
Chair is retiring
Little exposure to the most common specimens including gyn, GU and derm.
Mulitple recent residents have either transferred, failed the boards or did not complete residency due to personal issues which drags down the reputation of Brown/RIH
Pros:
Residents who have performed well have gotten good fellowships, which may not continue to happen now that DeLellis will not be making phone calls on behalf of Brown trainees
If you come to Brown you really are forced to do a fellowship either in a competitive sub-speciality or at an elite institution to be competitive for jobs. This is different from friends of mine who trained in the Harvard systems who have tremendous opporunities just by affiliation with Harvard. I thought when I started that Brown was on par with MGH, Women and Infants, Yale which it is not. In fact the second tier programs in Boston and New England are probably much better for pathology training.
Most former residents end up in private practice or on staff at Brown.
