Teaching:  | Atmosphere:  | Research:  |
Schedule
Schedule includes 5 four week blocks of floors of which two have to be done outside medicine (Surgery, OBGYN, or Peds), 1 ICU, 1 Ambulatory, 2 ER/Night Float, and 4 electives (of which two can be done outside of Crozer).
Typical day begins around 7:30AM with morning report (which is required for everyone on floor services and elective/ambulatory) and usually ends with signout sometime around 5PM (sometimes as early as 4:30, sometimes as late as 6 or 7PM). There are core conferences at 12:30-1:30 every day except Friday. When on surgery you have surgery hours (6AM to 6PM usually). ICU weekday hours are similar to floors except you are not required to attend teaching conferences.
Call is every fourth night when on floors, ICU, and ambulatory (basically on ambulatory you cover the ICU and/or Floors alternating so the interns on those services do not need to take call every third night). Medicine floor calls (3 blocks) are short-calls which end at 10-11PM when you sign out to the night float. ICU, Surgery, and Peds are overnight call (Peds and Surgery allow you to leave at noon post call if you wish). Work hours rarely exceed 80 per week, with the exception being ICU, Surgery, and the Y1 Medicine service (which not all transitionals are required to rotate through).
Teaching
The faculty for the most part are very well trained and very good teachers and enjoy teaching. There is a very large focus on didactic teaching here and on most services you have an extra hour of teaching rounds per day in addition to morning report and noon conference. Attendings are very approachable, supportive, and helpful.
Atmosphere
Transitional residents are placed alongside categorical Internal Medicine (mostly FMGs but for the most part hard working and friendly), Osteopathic, and Family Practice residents on most services. Everyone seems to get along just fine. As with any program, there are a few troublemakers but they for the most part they get along fine with everyone else.
The work environment is for the most part non-stressful. We rarely ever have to start peripheral IVs or perform venipuncture. ABGs on the floors are our responsibility but in the units respiratory even does those. You have plenty of time to get your work done.
Since this is a small program though, and since you are only on call every fourth night, you do not have the privledge of admitting the patients you follow on the floor. Its not atypical to come in at 7:30 AM and have 2-3 new patients on your list. Likewise when you are on call quite often you admit patients to the other intern on your service and to other services and never get to see the results of the workup you initiate. On a typical short-call night you admit 3-5 patients, and while on night float (10PM-7:30AM) you can admit anywhere from 3 to 11! patients as well as cross-cover ALL the teaching patients on the floor (I've had as many as 60). That gets very difficult and stressful when you have that many. But the residents are helpful and will often do some of the admissions for you.
Most transitionals have a life outside work. Most all of us see each other at one point or another at the Gym. There seem also to be regular social events (some provided by the department, some by drug reps, some just organized amongst ourselves).
Conclusion
This IMHO is a strong program which gives you flexibility in your course of study for the rest of your residency. Its still at times comes across as quite stressful but then again aren't all internships that way? With only about 6 1/2 months of call (of which only 3 of those are overnight) its really NOT that bad.
Oh and the benefits are great. Great salary, signing bonus, educational allowance, Palm organizer, excellent Gym membership. Nothing in the Philadelphia area comes close to what Crozer offers Transitionals!
