Atlanta Medical Center

The insight I can add is this:

AMC has a great group of residents. The attendings at AMC are all very concerned with resident education and provide a great degree of latitude to the residents in terms of what they do in the operating room. The residents are often highly involved in the day to day decision making (when to operate, what to use). That being said, a lot is expected of these guys early on. Community docs allow the residents to be with them because they care - they aren't obligated to - makes for a great experience.

Intern year - ID/Plastics/Vascular = nice Gen Surg/Trauma = tough Ortho = tough, a lot is expected, but hard work is rewarded with OR time.
2 - work your balls off for a ton of hours, but the 2s operate. These guys are doing the case, with a chief or an attending watching. Almost all trauma, some sports/spine as a 2. Did I say TONS of trauma?
3 & 4 - community rotations/Grady/Peds - great hand rotation with some amazing attendings, same with sports and peds. Onc with the Emory guys. Grady is typical county trauma hospital, suck it up for a few months
5 - teach the 2s at AMC trauma, hand rotation, in charge of indigent clinic

Pluses - dedicated group of residents that teach each other everything... do well on OITEs, you will operate a TON, especially on trauma. Expect to be able to do nails blindfolded as an intern - but this is with appropriate supervision. Atlanta is fun if you have a social life. Life is great as a 3,4,5 Brand new ER and trauma bay.

Minuses - indigent clinic is in a state of flux (lack of attending coverage), may decrease residents clinic time, but they get more than enough as 3s and 4s. No stable program director - this may not have much effect, as the program is HIGHLY resident run, in terms of day to day affairs, rotations, case coverage, etc. You get your ass handed to you as a 1,2. PACS system still fairly limited. Not your best institution for having a great fellowship fall in your lap.

+/- Organized didactics are few and far-between - most teaching in the OR and by the residents and attendings 1 on 1. Your education is what you make of it, but you are expected to know your shit or you'll hear it from attendings/chiefs.

I'd be happy to end up there, personally.

As a current resident, I may be a little bit biased, but let be give you my 2 cents.
First, we are actively in a nationwide search for a program director. This really is not that big of a deal. The residents here have a large say in who becomes our PD, and we are frankly very picky. Who ever is the next PD, I promise you will be a big resident avocate.
The reason we were on probation in the past was due to a prior PD that was asked to step down for personal issues. This had nothing to do with our residents, or the actualy program. Apparently, any time a PD is asked to step down, the RRC places you on probation. The RRC has reviewed our program recently with very positive feed back, and lifted the probation..

We do have trauma, but we do NOT get our "asses handed to us". We are a very laid-back program. If you have any direct questions, I would be happy to address them. Good luck with your decisions!

Another biased insight from an upper level at Atlanta medical may be in order.

Hammerjr has some good insight into the program, thought I could expand on it. We work hard, but are rewarded with being able to operate. No spending our PGY-2 year doing consults all day or working up ER patients, only to rarely see the OR or only see it on call. I DO NOT think "we get our asses handed to us", but that’s all relative. We are busy, and that amounts to more experience, the reason we are in a training program.

The way the program is structured, the PGY-3 and PGY-4 years are spent away from home base with private groups in town, leaving an intern, 3 PGY-2's and 2 Chiefs at Atlanta Medical. That’s 6 guys covering a bunch of cases; the PGY-2's are often 1 on 1 with an attending doing level appropriate cases, the intern doing basic trauma cases. Our trauma is busy, but its mostly blunt trauma, very little knife and gun club crap. Stuff to build your skills on. In addition, while at AMC the private attendings that cover AMC bring their elective cases, so you have a great mix of everything going on at one time, not just trauma to burn out on.

Meatloaf is right on regarding our program director. I have been in the program when the original PD stepped down, getting put on probation and the subsequent 2 year process of reviews (internally as well as by the ACGME resident review committee), leading to the lifting of our probationary status. After the process, I believe that probation only makes a program stronger, addressing any insufficiencies. We are actively seeking a PD, but are seeking the RIGHT program director for our residency. In orthopaedic academia, there is a LOT of flux with program directors/chairman right now, look around!

Some other points to clarify:

1) Organized didactics: we have conference every Tuesday night and Friday afternoon. Generally Tuesdays are guest speakers, labs, journal clubs, etc. Fridays are generally resident run lectures, OITE review, cadaver labs, etc. In the morning, depending on which rotation you are on, there are organized learning conferences in the morning before the operative day begins. I would say our didactic experience is very good, and each year it varies a slight bit because the conferences are organized by the chiefs. We do very well on the OITE legitimately.

2) In obtaining fellowships, one of the most important factors is who knows who. An attending that knows the head of a fellowship well that picks up the phone is as important as your application. ASK anyone who has interviewed for top fellowships. We operate with such a diverse group of attendings in Atlanta, we have an excellent history of obtaining very good fellowships.

3) Clinic Time- Being in a community program, we are 1 on 1 with attendings, mainly our 3rd and 4th years, and 4 months our chief year. We also spend extensive time in the Grady orthopaedic clinic our 4th year. We get an appropriate amount of office time to learn how to make decisions and see pre and post op patients for follow-up. Our indigent clinic is still operating, various staff are covering cases as need be, and the head of the clinic is being worked out.

I am definitely biased, but think we have it great at AMC. Most residents at other programs will speak highly of their program as well, and you will get great training at most orthopaedic programs.

I'd be happy to answer any more questions via email, so feel free to contact me.

I can tell you that the new Chairman at AMC is a great person. He is currently the head of Sports Medicine at my current program and I am very sad to see him go. You all will love him.

anymore info on this program?

Pros:
- new PD is very enthusiastic, trained in Southeast as well
- very down to earth residents
- seemed like staff was good to work with
- community surgeons on staff who are very productive
- new skills lab
- friendly support staff
- nice variety of settings: Scottish Rite, community surgeons in sports/hand, some Grady gritty stuff, and AMC
- appear close knit as a group, supportive
- possible in the pipeline to get Trauma I designation
- I think just one fellow
- Atlanta has a good night life, stuff to do

Not so pros:
- paper charting at AMC
- not so great neighborhood for AMC, was warned about thefts in parking garage being common
- traffic in Atlanta with several off-site locations
- not sure about strength of didactics
- some other programs at AMC may not be as well regarded as Ortho, so I wonder about whether that results in any issues

Research is not a main focus of this program but the research faculty seems interested and available for those who want to do some stuff. Not sure how much is available in terms of facilities/funding.

You will be trained well there.

So I spent a month rotating at Atlanta Medical Center. I decided to rotate here primarily because of all the positive reviews I had seen on Orthogate, and the great Atlanta location. Here are my thoughts:

The rotation is set up pretty well, allowing you to maximize your time with all the residents. Your first 2 weeks are on trauma, then you do 1 week of peds, and 1 week of sports/hand. The 2 weeks of trauma are pretty crazy; this hospital is right down the street from Grady and really the only difference between the two is that Grady gets more fractures secondary to gun shots while AMC gets fractures secondary to blunt trauma, which is pretty freakin common in Atlanta. Most nights I would be up all night seeing patients in the ER, splinting, cosenting them for surgery the next day, etc. From talking with the AMC residents who also spend 2 months at Grady, they get (adjusted for hospital size) the same amount orthopaedic trauma that Grady does. So for those 2 weeks of trauma, you are getting to the hospital at 5 a.m., seeing patients and writing progress notes which the residents come by later to sign. At 6:45 a.m. the attendings come in and the resident on call displays all the patients that were admitted with their corresponding x-rays on a huge projected screen. Then after that, they go through all the post-operative x-rays from the previous day and discuss various aspects of each case. Once that finishes up around 7:30 a.m., then we all head to the ER to start various cases. Most days we are in the ER until 5 p.m., but it can stretch further than that. Those students who aren't on call go home around 6 p.m., and the rest stay to see consults.

The 1 week on Sports is freaking cush. I finally got to wake up at a reasonable time, and I drove out to Buckhead (a very ritzy part of Atlanta) to the Sports clinic. We primarily do Sports with Dr. Gilogily, who is the official team surgeon for the Atlanta Falcons and the Atlanta Thrashers (hockey team). His clinic looks like a massive Ritz Carlton hotel, with sign jerseys of various athletes every, 8 physical therapists in house, a crazy nice rehab center, and a spattering of professional and college athletes that come in to see him for their orthopaedic care. During this week you also operate with Dr. Kane, who is the chair and a Sports guy who specializes in shoulder. This is a good time to get some facetime with him.

The last week is split between pediatrics at the Children's Hospital of Atlanta and Hand. This hospital is pretty stingy, so you can't scrub, all you can do is observe, but its still a good experience to see what environment you will be in if you match at AMC. The hand guy there is Dr. Lorie and he is the best teacher I've met in my entire life. He was also trained under Dr. Neer so he is super connected. Its guys like this that you scrub with one to one as a resident at AMC, and that is an aspect that made me excited about the program.

So below is a list of pros and cons that I developed after spending a month there:

PROS
- cohesive group of residents that are really hilarious and fun to be around
- great amount of operative experience overall, and very early operative experience. I saw interns nailing tibias and PGY2s plating distral radius fxs
- Great pay for the Atlanta area
- Good mix of inner city vs rich city patients due to rotations at buckhead hospitals
- no fellows, so every case is just you and the attending.
- Brand new operating rooms that were built just for Orthopaedic cases. These rooms are pretty high tech, funded by Synthes with multiple swivel flat screens that can display pre-op X-rays or intra-op fluoro shots
- One on one operating with attendings in Atlanta that were trained under big names like Neer and Anderson, So when it comes time for fellowship, all they need to do is make a call
- Good fellowship placement. A resident last year matched at Rush and there is one this year going to hopkins for spine
- No hospital policy against reps feeding you so they get lots of free lunches from different ortho reps
- ability to moonlight for Hand during the PGY 3, 4, and 5 years.
- in house PA available to cover floor work
- Right down the street from Grady so you get the grady experience without the bad parts of being at Grady
- There is no ER residency, only attendings at the hospital, so that makes the experience of being in the ED better somewhat
- This program has the only 2 fellowship trained trauma guys in Atlanta (shows you how much trauma they get). Ziran is one of them, and he is freaking amazing (from Pitt) and well connected
- Private attendings that you rotate with are the team docs for the Atlanta Falcons, Atlanta Braves, Atlanta Thrashers, and all the local high school football teams
- they have a dedicated phd researcher who is available to help you pump out papers, and dr ziran is still writing tons of papers

CONS
- the majority (90%) of their residents are from the south, so its hard to break in there unless you rotate
- the hospital itself is pretty old.
- definitely not as academic as most other programs. research isn't really required
- didactics are mostly resident run (residents teach residents via PPT presentations)
- they technically only have 3 main attendings for the program. All the other attendings that you work with as a residents are simply affiliated. not sure how much of a con this is
- Their computer system is archaic. like before ms dos archaic. apparently the hospital is inthe process of upgrading to a modern EMR system, but right now its only in the ED
- food while on call is terrible. they give you food allowance via "funny money" that can only be used in vending machines that are special for the "funny money". and the selection in the vending machine is terrible. no food place is within walking distance.
- hospital is located on a pretty shady road. But about 5 miles away it start to get nice again.

That is incorrect. There's a new ortho traumatologist at Grady who did fellowship at Carolinas I believe.

Grady has 6 attendings that are there regularly (up to 9 on certain days of the week). Of them, 2 are fellowship trained traumatologists. They do all the pelvic/acetabular cases at Grady.
The remaining attendings there are fellowship trained in hand/upper extremity, joints, and spine. With them, you will do trauma cases tailored to their specific area of focus. (ie peri-prosthetic fractures with the joints attendings)

Just to clarify I can count 8 ortho trauma trained docs in ATL. Albert, Lundy, Terrell, Ziegler in private practice and then Ziran and Schlatterer at AMC and Moore and Reisman at Grady / Emory. There may be others but these are the ones i know

Moore is good, but is not fellowship trained (prob just due to his age and when he trained). Lundy and Ziran are rumored to be best in town. Think that Lundy trained at AMC.

I think they are all pretty great. Not sure what rumors you are referring to...

Both Emory and AMC programs have several notable differences. Both, however, have strong trauma exposure and you will be very competent in fracture care by training at either program.

good luck to current applicants

AMC has been granted a 4th residency spot. They will be taking 4 interns in the match this year and will back-fill a PGY-2 position.

Anyone heard back regarding the 2 spot??