Hey everyone...i just recently posted this review on Hopefully it will copy over here or you can go check it out there. Good luck to all you people trying to find what the right place for you is!
Schedule
I did the Orthopedic Surgery AI at MCV (my home school) during my fourth year and rotated for two weeks my third year. Residents typically would work from 6am to approx. 6:30pm if not on call. Call was ~9/month (q3-4) in house for the junior residents and ~6/month for senior residents with some being home call. There are 6 main teams and the residents rotate through each of them multiple times through their residency. At the main hospital there is Blue team and Gold team, (one is mainly trauma and joints while the other is hand, shoulder, elbow, tumor, spine etc) and the other rotations consist of Sports, Peds, Research, and VA. Cases typically begin at 7:30am. The residents also have one 5hr block per week of didactic time in which they are free of all clinical responsibilities as well as a mon morning intake conference to go over all weekend cases and a basic science lecture once a week which all of the residents are required to attend. There are no saturday conferences. My responsibilities as an AI were to pre-round on the patients whose surgeries I attended then to go help write H+P's for the days cases and then get down to the OR for the cases I was assigned to that day. In general you are put onto Blue or Gold team. If blue goes to the OR MWF and has clinic tue/thur then gold goes to the OR Tue/thurs and has clinic MWF and helps blue in the OR on Fri if all is going well in clinic. Students are required to attend all didactic sessions and give a breif presentation of an orthopedic topic of our choosing at the end of our AI. We also get the opportunity to meet with the program director, residency chair, and student chair for an exit interview.
Teaching
The faculty are the biggest asset to this program. I found that they were willing to teach at almost any time. I was there one night at 3am while one of the attendings took an R2 through his first femoral nail. As I saw it the attending could have done it himself very quickly and gone back to bed but he was patient and took the resident through it. That really impressed me. Also the all are very accessible and the residency director in particular is very committed to making it the best possible experience for the residents. In the last year he and the residents worked out a plan for a dedicated research block, better call schedules, and gave the residents a lot of autonomy in choosing who and what they were going to hear in the didactic sessions and he is asking for resident feedback basically every time they see him. The attendings also really go to bat for the residents when they apply to fellowships. They are very well connected and I got the feeling that they felt their residents recieved excellent training and deserved to get great fellowships and I felt like they really went out of their way in trying to secure residents the fellowships that they deserved.
Atmosphere
The residents in this program work extremly hard especially when they are on call. It being a Level 1 trauma center, the juniors practically never sleep but I think this makes them a very close knit group. I didn't witness any bickering while I was there and in general the residents seemed happy although tired sometimes. One thing that really impressed me was that when one person finished their work for the day they didn't go home they helped the other people on their team finish up and then they all left together. I think this really cut down on what could have been some really late nights. This was especially evident on Fri's when the clinic team finishes up the get over to the OR and help that team finish so they can start their weekend earlier. The physical environment is OK...its no mayo clinic with plasma flat screens everywhere but it gets the job done. There is a computerized system of x-rays in the OR and on the floors however while i was there charts were still papers and they had an archaic computer for putting in orders however new computers were being delivered as I left and they were supposed to be converting to electronic charts and orders a few months ago. There are no foreign medical grads in this program. As far as life outside of work. Richmond is great if you like outdoor stuff...mountainbiking, kayacking, backpacking etc are all near by and a few of the residents actually share a boat that they take out on the james river for waterskiing and wakeboarding quite often. It has a good amount to do but if you are from a big city it is probably much less than you are used to. There are no major college or pro-sports teams but they do have a number of minor league teams.
Conclusion
This program stands out because of its excellent attendings and residents. I think residents leave extremely well trained and could very successfully go right into general orthopaedics following graduation as some have in the past. However if pursuing a fellowship is what you want, residents also have the ability to get into some of the best fellowships offered. In general it seems 3 or all of the residents pursue fellowship after they graduate. I think the residents will tell you the best thing about this program is you get to operate early and often. Residents definately were scoping and doing replacements themselves much earlier than at either of the two other places I rotated at and they were extremly confident and competent when it came to trauma. Drawbacks for this program for some could be that it is a level 1 trauma center (aka no sleep on call) I thought this would be a positive though because future employers seem to like people with trauma experience who can occasionally take trauma call. As an added note if you are female this program is very female friendly. Although this wasn't the case even 5 years ago. They have taken a female each of the last three years and this year they took 2. Also if you do a rotation here I think it really helps. Very few people do rotate here so when you do it really stands out. Also you have tons of contact with the program director and residency director during you month and you will have a good feel if you are a good fit or not. The one main drawback for me with this program was research. They do require one basic science and one clinical project to be completed while you are there and they have two PHD's to help with projects and data analysis. however, their labs are not as up to date as some other institutions and they do not have a clinical database and until last year did not have dedicated research time. I am interested in both the excellent trauma experience as well as doing some intensive research and that is why I ranked a few programs higher than MCV and ended up matching at one of those programs. however had I matched at MCV I would have been very happy as I definately feel that I would have got the training I was looking for I just probably wouldn't have had as much opportunity for research. anyway hope this is helpful to you all and good luck!
