DMC or Wayne State Program?

Hello,

yes the Detroit Medical Center DID get a new residency program. It is a joint program with DMC receiving, Children's, MIOSH and Providence Hospital which are community hospitals in Metro Detroit. They are taking residents in this coming match. At present Wayne State University does not have an orthopaedic residency program, however, some of the old Wayne staff is affiliated with this new program.

Any idea how they are going to get things going. I mean are there any residents left over from the last program or are they going to have to start from scratch? I bet it would be pretty sweet to be scrubbing a total joint or a pelvis as an intern and be running the show. Any insight would be great.

i don't mean to be rude, and maybe you were just being flip, but regardless of program and availability of other residents, you have to be on something pretty heavy to think you'll be running any sort of "show" as an intern. even if it is just you and an attending scrubbing a case. being an intern = the "show" you will be running is the floor pager and it will be the nurses running you. regardless of if you are the only ortho resident in the hospital.

and speaking as an ortho resident in a program that is very heavy on early operative experience - especially in complex cases (i.e. pelvis) - as an intern, regardless of how much you've "read" or "seen," you still don't know jack and are humbled more often than you imagined possible.

sorry for the interruption in topic.

more on topic - do a thread search on the dmc/wayne subject and it's offspring. there are very divided opinions on the topic.

I didn't mean to come across that way. I was just thinking that it might be a good opportunity to have a real early exposure to the OR. Thinking about it more, it might also be tougher in a way without having senior residents around to also do teaching and to learn from. I'm just trying to find out all of my options as I want to stay in state and had only heard rumors from down the road in Detroit.

From what I understand they took 2nd years this past July and are now taking applications for 1st and 2nd years for next July. So in July 2008 they will have PGY1-3 residents. The program has spots for 4 residents per year.

That being said, given the history of the program and the fact that pretty much all of the great Wayne faculty are not associated with the program anymore, I would only consider the DMC residency as a last hoorah on your rank list.

although the dmc program is starting over, it will be a good one soon. the new staff there are great and allow early operative experience and teach. they do get coverage in peds and trauma from residents at another program because there are only 4 new PGY2s this year. there are more attendings joining the pot and i am sure it will be a great program soon. even though it probably wont be high on most peoples list it should still be on there for a back up.

u won t be carrying the floor pager because there are PA's for that. you will be asked to run the show to a ceratin extent. you will get to do cases based on your experience and level of comfort with that attending.

Uh yeah…I’m going to have to chime in on this one.

Crimeboss, you seem to be one of the rotators from another program and it appears that you are rotating at Receiving and Childrens. It looks like you think highly of the new DMC program as you stated that it “will be bad ass real soon” in another post. However, I think that the glowing endorsements of mediocrity should be tempered just a bit.

I’m writing this post for the 98-99% of the applicants out there… I know how competitive ortho is and how desperate most of us are to get a spot, any spot. Most of us will look at any and all opportunities so that we can become an orthopaedic surgeon. However, I think that the current applicants should really understand what happened in Detroit last year and what they would be signing up for.

It’s difficult to even begin to describe the events in the last few years, but needless to say it played out more like a bad soap opera with an even worse ending. The sad part is that most of that same discord continued into last year when the DMC and Wayne State took negotiations to the 11th hour before coming to “an agreement” to continue most of the programs for the almost 1000 other residents in other departments. However, in so doing the two parties essentially agreed to a slow divorce from each other with a continuous separation and altering of the remaining programs.

That being said, the current DMC orthopaedic program is new and is only affiliated with the DMC and not with Wayne State. They received initial accreditation in July 2007 and are due to have another site visit in 2009. It’s really mind boggling as to how they actually got this off the ground again. They must have presented a revisionist historical account of what they did to the previous residents. The biggest thing to remember is that the DMC held onto the CMS money, the funding that supports resident education and salaries. This made the transferring to other programs incredibly difficult as initial contacts with most programs suddenly went silent when they found out that we didn’t have our funding coming with us. We were told that the “DMC [would] not do anything to try to block [us].” I guess that they really didn’t block us. It’s not like we were a college athlete that would have to sit out a year if we transferred unless we were released from our scholarship. It’s not like they locked the doors so that we couldn’t get out. It’s not like they tried to hold on to the knowledge that we obtained while we were there. That might be a question to ask on your interview.


Another thing to consider is that according to the Shoulder and Elbow society…

”Dr Blasier has decided to work in the field of medical malpractice after retiring from orthopaedic surgery on June 30, 2012.”

He’s the program director on paper and basically as an incoming intern you would be assured of having someone else at the helm by the time that you graduate.




Below are a few links of recent articles on this situation. The thing to notice is that most of the people on the DMC side are still there, are still in control and are still very “involved” in the residency. I invite you to draw your own conclusions. I don’t need to tell you that you’ve all worked very hard to get to where you are to pursue this goal. Just remember that the DMC showed little concern about the previous residents and I ask you what’s changed to prove that they really care now.











I will leave you with something that was just put so well…

I welcome discussion on this issue--its morality, appropriateness, practicality, effects, etc--as long as the discussants realize that
the discussion will not change the fact…or in this case, the facts.


Peace
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Red Headed Step Child.....you seem to know quite a bit about what happened at DMC so I assume that you were a resident/intern there. I had a great trauma experience there as did the other rotators from different hospitals. We(outside residents) never see the political crap that goes on behind closed doors as the original residents experienced. I hope that it will one day be just as good as it was in the past. They still have a long road ahead to build other strong rotations but I hope it does work. Wayne State apparently has a program ready to start in a few years with a few former DMC attendings on board. I have spoken to a few of them directly and they are excited. You are right in advising caution to applicants out there. I did not know enough about what transpired in the past and I am glad that you added some great links. I just wanted to try to help out people who are applying because I know it is tough. That is why this forum is so valuable. It provides some info that can possibly open new doors or help point people in the right. direction.