I'm a second year resident at Downstate. The RRC reviewed us at the end of January. Regardless of what you were told, we won't find out the result until the spring, probably may/june from what I hear.
The primary complaint of the RRC, namely the lack of a permanent chair, was resolved just before our site visit.
William P. Urban, our sports director, was promoted from interim chair to permanent chair.
Dr. Urban has instituted a number of positive changes in our program, some of which I explained to the guys/girls that were there at the second interview date.
If any of you have any questions, please ask them on this site.
Thanks

Anyone know if this issue has been resolved? Does downstate have full accredidation?

I'm a third year resident at downstate, we were reviewed by the RRC and are fully accredited. I'm happy to answer any questions anyone might have about our program, I remember when I interviewed here it was hard to find out anything about program.

a few questions about downstate:
1. what's the operating experience like? Do you operate early on in the residency like 2nd year?
2. what's the interview process like? Is it chill or did you get pimped on anatomy, x-rays, etc?
3. what's the living accomodation arrangement? are there dorms or do residents find housing by themselves?
4. how do the residents match as far as fellowships go? Do they go to big name institutions?
5. Is there an ortho oncologist there on faculty?
6. What are the weaknesses of the program?

Lots of questions. Appreciate your help

I'm happy to answer any questions.

1) Operative experience - Our main hospital is Kings County (county) a large public hospital serving most of Brooklyn. Our operative experience there is primarily trauma. There is a fracture svc., peds service, sports service and hand service. Fracture is by far the busiest svc.
The sports, peds and hand residents also cover cases at Downstate Medical Center which is across the street from the county. The fracture team stays at the County.

As an intern you rotate on the hand svc for one month, the other rotations are radiology, anethesiology, rheumatology, neurosurgery, peds surg, transplant surg, general surg at downstate, Staten Island University Hosp and Long Island College Hospital, Burn unit at Staten Island (yes, Burn unit. its a good early "ICU like" experience), and Hand svc at Kings county.
1st year is pretty easy, you get post call off and are q 3 for call, so your schedule is 7-5pm workday, call, then post-call day off. Radiology, anesthesia, rheum and Burn unit are cake rotations with plenty of time to read your 1st year which you'll need for PGY-2.
Operative exp. is adq., but probably like most programs the gsurg give cases to their res. 1st, the ortho res. are usually the most reliable and therefore they are kept on the floor getting work done.

PGY-2 (hardest year)
4months as fracture svc junior at the County. Shift work 6am- (7-9pm) when on days, 7pm-10am when on night shift. Work M-F, weekends off. You carry the pager for both the county and downstate as well as run the floor for your fracture patients.
4months at Long Island College Hospital (LICH). Private hospital in Brooklyn Heights good operative exp. joints/sports/spine/F&A, some fracture
1 month Hand at county, primarily hand trauma
1month SICU at the county
2mo Sports svc at Downstate with Chairman Dr Urban, some op. exp

PGY-3
4mo Brookdale University Hosp, great op. exp., private hospital with the county feel in east new york/brownsville, brooklyn. Lots of trauma, some jnts/sports/spine
2mo at Staten Island University Hosp, decent op exp. joints, best F&A experience, good elective hand cases, good sports exp., no spine
2mo peds at county and downstate
2mo recon at downstate, god jnt exp, as a PGY-3 once your done with this rotation you'll feel comfortable doing THA/TKA
2mo Brooklyn VA- laid back, joints and sports cases

PGY-4
2mo fracture at county
2mo spine svc
4mo at LICH
2mo at Staten Island
2mo at Brookdale

PGY-5
2mo fracture at county
2mo VA
2mo Hand
2mo Recon at downstate
2mo Peds Downstate/county
2mo Sports at Downstate/County

2)Interview process- laid back, just questions. No suturing cheese or other crazy motor skill activities, no xray analysis/ethical question grilling or "fund of knowledge" rooms (ala LIJ).
2 interviews with faculty and chatting witht the residents with a weak breakfast and bad coffee

3)This is Brooklyn, you don't want to live near the hospital. But Park Slope and Bayridge are really nice areas very close to all our hospitals. Rents vary from $1,000- $1,600/month depending on what you want/roomates. People also live in Manhattan and SI, Long Island

4)Fellowships- each year its pretty evenly distributed Sports, Recon, Spine, F&A, Fracture. More or less the guys seem to be happy with where they end up. At interview day they will give you a list of where recent grads have done their fellowships.

5)Onc- no ortho oncologist, we have didactics every mon afternoon and friday morning is grand rounds. Every month we have an ortho onc/path present cases/slides. But we have little tumor experience (probably like many places)

6)weakness
-didactics are weak, if you were the kid in med school who
needed to go to class to learn and be fed lectures, you won't like our schedule. I always learned, primarily by reading, and there is time to read, i was able to read skeletal trauma pgy-1, which helped greatly for pgy-2
-we need more F&A, little/no onc experience
-poor ancillary staff at the county (like all county hospitals) /downstate makes your junior years more painfull.
-enviornment- most hospitals are in th ghetto of brooklyn, its not the upper east side of manhattan. You have to be able to hold your own, if you've never been to a city before, this is no time to start. You will get abused by the ancillary staff if you don't stand up for yourself
But there are plenty of people to take care of and lots of good pathology and fractures.

I hope that helped I know its alot of info.

When I was applying I wanted a more "white collar" program in a nice area. But I'm happy where I ended up.

What I didn't realize as a med student was that as a resident, you don't want to work in the private "pretty hospital". Yeah the nurses might be cuter, the ancillary staff better, and the call room cleaner. But as a resident you should want to see patholgy and operate as the primary surgeon and that's the experince that we get at most places.

Boxer, thanks a tonne for the last post. It definitely answered my questions. see you on the 8th of jan.