Teaching:  | Atmosphere: | Research:  |
Schedule
Since I am more verbose than most people, I will go into a little bit more detail than the other review about the program. Overall opinion of the program is that I am very happy, most if not all the other residents are happy(the reason I say if not all is because I haven't talked to everyone. its a very nice year compared to what most other interns go through. The schedule is as follows: two (THATS RIGHT!!) months of floors, 1 month of ER, 1 month of UNIT, 1 month of Tele, 1 month of ambulatory, and 4.8 months of electives (I know thats a discrepancy but you will understand in a second), .5 months of dayfloat, .7 months of vacation. At this point, I have gone through a few rotations and talked to many fellow transitionals to give the breakdowns for each rotation. Starting with:
GMF: PROS: Not too many except its a learning experience, a right of passage to get you through the dreamland of rads, derm, anesthesia, pm&r, or whatever. DUE TO RECENT CHANGES YOU WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY NOT WORK MORE THAN 80 HOURS but will sometimes be close.
CONS: Overnight q 4 call. only like four or five days off. Sometimes a big roster (14 to 17 theoretically)
Overview. Post call intern is allowed to leave by teaching rounds which is at 10:30. Other days might be 7 to 5, 6-5, 6-6,depending on senior, your organization, etc, etc. Teaching is generally good. Most of the seniors are good. There is close to two and a half hours of conference (1 hr noon conference and 1-1.5 hrs teaching rounds). call is busy. Most interns look forward to the end of this month.
1 month of SICU: PROS: Only q 6 overnight compared to most other places which are like q3. most others days are 7-5. Plenty of seniors including pulmonary fellows. good teaching. hands on experience. Post call day and next days are off Cons: q3 short call till like nine of ten.
Overall: Its a tough month but at most you are carrying 3 or 4 patients and you are never alone so its much much better than unit months at other places.
1 month of Tele: Sort of like GMF in terms of call schedule (q4) but teaching is generally better, hours are less demanding. similar to gmf in that post call interns are out by 10:30. patients are much less complicated (many are rule-outs), so its a lot more relaxed.
1 month of ER: PROS: very nice attendings. most you can be on a 1st name basis. very laid back and opportunity (not a requirement!!!) to do tons of hands on stuff. Patient load might be as little as 5 (7 to 10 could also happen) per shift. CONS: Insane number of shifts. Schedule as follows: 7a-7p x 3 days..24 hrs off..7p-5a x 3 nights..including the morning of your third night shift, you get three days off...repeat the process.. for close to 21 shifts (12 twelve hrs shifts and nine 10 hour shifts)in the month. OVERALL: a lot of shifts....three night shifts in a row are tough especially if you have time sleeping during the day time. but when you are at work, its very nice.
1 month of ambulatory: Work at a private doctors office (usually a group). you work the attendings' schedule which might be as light as 8:30 to 12:oo (so you can make it to noon conference by 12:30) and after noon conference ends at 1:30, you could be off. sometimes a little harder depending on the site But no call, no weekends, nice easy month since most attendings are very nice and laid back.
Day float: On GMF, the post call intern signs out his patients to the day float so s/he can be out by 10:30p. Day float is supervised by senior and is generally doing the things that a post call-intern would have to do. Most days are like 8-8:30a to 4-5p. Its only two weeks...no admissions...you do work weekends but get every fifth day off.
4.8 months of elective: This are technically supposed to be 6 "MONTHS" of electives but vacation which is three weeks (split into one two week and a one week block) can only be taken during electives for obvious reasons. and you also do two weeks of day float during one of your elective months (see above). So thats five weeks that are techncially not electives but you get the idea (or 1.2 months). NO CALL DURING ELECTIVE....FREE WEEKENDS....some electives are EAAAAAASY...you can do one month AWAY.....THIS IS WHAT MAKES THE PROGRAM. Of note: During one week in the whole year of one of your elective month, you might be a Jeopardy intern who will only be called in if someone is sick or has an emergency on a critical service like GMF, unit, er, etc.
OVERALL: Whats not to like? Most transistional programs have way more floor months that are just as tough as einstein's. ER, UNIT, and Tele, could be considered tough but they are so laid back and the teaching is generally stellar that its not that bad. electives are great. if you have a schedule where you are alternating electives with "tough"months, you can think of it as like a half year internship. Obviously, you stll go to work on electives but that hours are so benign and responsibbilities so less that you feel like an ms5. Added benefits: gym membership paid by department, $2500 bonus at the end of the year, nice city, NO SURGERY MONTHS, NO OB-GYN MONTHS, NO PEDS MONTHS (although very rarely people can do electives)
Teaching
Good teaching but obviously some of it can be attending dependent. Noon conference with free food every day which is protected.
Atmosphere
Good comraderie. 0%fmg's in transitional program, many categoricals are fmg's and are very very competent (including the spanish mafia, the mbbs'es, and the south africans with the nice almost australian accents that somehow sound more distinguished.) Minimal phlebotomy unless its a stat order, orders are followed, and most nurses are very nice. I do have social life outside of work and its a lot more than my friends whom i went to medical school with.
Conclusion
I would definitely choose this program again. the drawbacks are outlined above on a month by month basis but in the end its a very nice program. In terms of total work hours, I would imagine it is far less than every prelim program in the country and close to 95% of transistionals. No wonder it is rightly considered the most competitive/best transistional program in philadelphia. Twenty spots per year so good luck.
Votes: 2)
