St. Louis University

SLU = mandatory 6 yrs for all 3 residents........uhhh! But STL is a fun town if you can stomach a year of research. I don't know SLU well because they didn't give me an interview and actually didn't accept me for med school for that matter. I would ask around and see if the residents who matched there were research oriented, ie. did they actually have ortho publications while applying as a med student or did they just have ortho research projects that they never got a chance to finish before you waste an away rotation there, if they all had pubs and you don't it may be something they are looking for. My opinion only.
I remain, the mad ukrainian.

Since I posess actual knowledge on the topic, (why the hell is the other guy writing about SLU when he hasnt even been here) I figured I might chime in. Dr. Moed is a huge resident advocate and works very hard to improve the program any chance he has. He holds the residents to a very high standard but that only makes you better. I personally think he is looking to make clinical docs that could do academics if they wanted to.. The residents here are not "dorky -- research" types. They do 2 projects in the second year. One basic science and one clinical.. Dr. Moed thinks that if you are going to do research you should do something meaningful.

This place is trauma heavy, hard working. Do not be fooled by the research year --- this is not some ivery tower that does biomechanical studies all day long. YOu get in the trenches and do some cool cases. The breth of cases done here is huge.

I would argue our trauma dept is as good/does as much case load as anyone in the country.

Dr. Moed...if its a pelvis noone else can fix you call this guy. He also writes books and is very involved in the orthopedic scene.

Dr. Watson....this guy is amazing. He is nice and very helpful to people at all levels....He writes books, does research , and can fix anything. He takes very complex tibial malunions, non-unions...he does at least 2 Iliazarov/Taylor Frames a week. He does tib plateau and all upper extermity stuff.

Dr. Karges....foot and ankle and trauma .....lets the residents operate a ton...steller guy...he does complex pilons/Lisfrancs/fusions/and upper ext stuff

Dr. Jackman....this guy does more acetabulums in a month than most places do in a year....he also takes all the pelvis fractures....

Thats just the trauma dept......

I think you should rotate here --- make sure you are on the trauma service....It is getting more competietve as Moed is making this place better by the day.....I think the 6th year might turn a few people off....but by no means does that affect the residents that come here....

you have to like trauma and just know your getting a 6th year...but seriously you get to work with some amazing guys that care a lot about resident education.....

Moed's goal is NOT to make chairman....its to make a good orthopedic surgeon who can critically think and holds him/herself to a high level....
I think he wants you to have the ability to put together some publications after residency if you so choose.

I think this is the type of place that hardwork and team playing on an away will go along way... IF you are on the trauma service you will do clinic and operate with karges/watson/jackman mostly.....watson is the residency director....so if you impress him you can score big points......
the residents also want people who can hold the fort down on busy trauma nights....this isnt some country club with a finger lac and a hip fracture on call....you will be busy in the ER...

YOu also need solid grades and good board scores....but i can assure you that if you kick ass here that will be more important than anything else...

I hope this helps....you can PM me if you have any more questions

I can't comment on SLU, but I would recommend looking at scutwork.com when planning your aways. It has reviews from many med students who have done aways at places (none for SLU unfortunately), but for many places can give you an idea of what the schedule and experience is like. It is of course very subjective, but no more so than the posts you get on this board!

I interviewed at SLU so my opinions are based soley on my experiences during the 5-6 hours I spent during my interview. However, I thought SLU has a great program. I thought the faculty were very out-going and the residents seemed very cool and would be fun to work with. St. Louis seems like a nice up and coming place to live as well. My one piece of advice that goes beyond SLU is to truly determine what you are looking for in a residency program. Take the time to determine if you are looking for academics, operative experience, big name faculty, location, etc. Most importantly, be realistic about who you are and what you want. Don't go for a heavy research program (again talking about programs in general) if you really hated the research experience you've had so far. Your feelings toward it are probably not going to change. That being said, SLU's research requirements are only 2 projects (most programs require 1). It didn't seem any more research heavy than many other programs I visited. The extra year is the only aspect that really sets them apart from the vast majority of other programs as it pertains to research. Personally, I like research, really liked the program at SLU, and ranked them highly. Hope this helps.

...and their residents have usernames like "perpetualpriapism," that's obviously a good sign.

I'm about to be a chief resident at SLU, I was the first class of interns to have Moed and the rest of the Detroit mafia take over. I'm not sure my permanently erect friend is a resident in this program, maybe a student here? Doesn't matter, most of what he said is accurate about our program.

Watson is not the program director, Moed is.

Pros and cons in my mind are as follows:

Biggest con is the 6th year. Not many people are interested in prolonging the realization of their dream by a year just for the chance to do meaningful research. That being said, the research year is cush, you do get real research done that is publishable, and for four months you act as Dr. Moed's personal resident doing all of his clinics and cases with him. Dr. Moed can be a real ball buster when you screw up, but he is completely fair and is great to work with in clinic and the OR.

Other cons: the hospital is fair. We do have good floor nurses, good electronic radiology with monitors in the ORs (makes life much easier, particularly for putting talks together), but the Operating room is a disaster with very long turnover times which can be very frustrating when you take 12 hours to do 5 hours worth of real operating.

Location in the city is not great, not super safe area. That being said, the hospital campus itself is well policed and lit, but I do know a couple of people whose cars have been broken into.

Pros:
Very easy call schedules during ortho years. I'm not sure about intern year now (just haven't asked our terns). As research year, you take 5-6 calls a month to stay sharp and do clinic/OR on the trauma service 1.5 days a week for 8 months. The other 4 months you are Dr. Moed's boy full time. R2 year is 8 months of trauma with 6 calls a month, 2 months of hand which is all home call plus one in house call, 2 months of peds.
R3 is 4 months peds (6 calls/month), 4 months spine (home call 10-12 days and 1 inhouse call/month), 4 months joints (one inhouse call/month). R4 is 4 months more spine, 4 months sports, 4 months hand (all with one inhouse call per month).

Detailed enough for you? That was long winded, but a lot of you guys want details when choosing.
Now, inhouse call at SLU is extremely busy, usually between 30 minutes and 2 hours of sleep per night. The peds call is variable with some killer nights and some no hitters in the winter months.

St. Louis is a great town with cheap housing, good resaurants, not too bad traffic, and awesome sports if you like that sort of thing. I had spent all of 18 hours here when I moved here from Dallas and was very pleasantly surprised by what a cool town this is.

Mentioned before were all of our trauma faculty, which I agree are stellar traumatologists that can teach you to be comfortable with just about any extremity injury you can imagine.

But, I think the other faculty are just as good if not better in some respects. The two spine staff are great guys that teach a ton and will let you operate very quickly, unlike our big brothers down the highway (from what I hear). I'm doing a spine fellowship, so this was a big plus for me. The spine volume is high here, particularly trauma and adult deformity. Dr. Alander is doing a lot of minimally invasive stuff in adult degenerative as well.
Dr. Otto is our only total joint guy right now, but he is a blast to work with. He lets you operate as soon as you show that you're ready. Only weakness on his service is that all primary hips are MIS two incision approach. Good thing is you can go out and do those immediately without difficulty, but you won't be quite as facile with traditional approaches as guys from joint factory programs.
The peds experience is good as well, with lots of trauma, CP, and bread and butter stuff too if you like that kind of thing.
Sports is not a particular strong suit now, but Dr. Moed is changing things and I think soon it will be a solid facet of the program.
Hand is a very fun rotation where you get both university (= trauma) hand experience as well as a rotation with a community hand surgeon who is unbelievable technically that will show you the slickest way to do anything from the shoulder down.

So overall, this program obviously isn't for everyone, with the 6 years and patient population and pathology typical of big city university settings. Overall I've been happy with my training, but I knew from the start I'd do a fellowship of some sort. Community programs probably do a somewhat better job at preparing you to go right out and practice, although I think the longer Moed works here the more rounded and complete this program will be.

I hope next year's guys will give it a look, and good luck to those of you waiting to hear about the match 2006.

Just curious if you had any thoughts about Dr. Kieffer? Is he well respected or on his way out?
Thanks

I think this is Kieffer's last year. The residents are working with Dr. Gross, who is a private practice (univesity affiliated) sports guy. I think he does a lot of shoulders. Dr. Paletta recently left Wash U and has joined Dr. Gross in private practice. I think the hope is that Dr. Paletta will also join in teaching the residents sports med.

The future chief was right....I am a current med student at SLU....but on thurs I find out if I will be a resident at SLU...
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