Aways: UMass

UMass is a great program... I'm an MS4 here, and can't say enough good things about the program.

The residents are great (including five women currently), and are probably the biggest strength of the program. The faculty are a good mixture: a number of young and motivated surgeons, as well as some more experienced and very knowledgable senior faculty.

Traditionally UMass is an extremely strong clinical program, with most graduates logging 2200+ cases. Of note, these are not simply gruntwork statistics... OR's will rarely have more than 2 residents at a time. PGY-2s are often doing a large portion of primary joints, and doing them well, halfway through the year. The seniors, when present, are generally teaching the case (very well, I might add). It seems as if they have usually seen enough of most cases by PGY-4,5 year that they get more out of teaching than doing. However, people in central Mass are incredibly creative about finding ways to injure themselves, and high-level trauma cases, as well as many revision jonts, etc. will definitely keep the seniors busy operating on a regular basis. In terms surgical training, and based on rotations and discussions with other MS4s, I would be willing to bet the Trauma and Joint experience here are as good as any program in the nation.

The new chairman has done a great deal to promote research, and the academic side of things has benefitted. In addition to some great basic science and outcomes research, there are now clinical research projects in joints, spine, and hand/upper extremity. Didactics are strong, mostly resident run. If you are looking for faculty to lecture you on a daily basis, this probably isn't the place for you (trauma rounds each morning at the University campus is as close as you'll get).

In terms of doing an away here, I loved it. This past year we spent a week on Trauma, a week on Pedi/Spine, a week on Joints/General, and a week on Hand/Sports, so it provided a lot of diversity that helped me out during later SubI's. Call at UMass is busy, but fun... the residents balance supervision and experience very well with SubI's.

Overall, definitely an up-and-coming residency program, and a place where I would have been more than happy to train. I would encourage a rotation, and hope your experiences are as good as mine have been.

I really liked the program at U Mass when I interviewed there, but I am curious to know if U Mass has found tumor and Foot and Ankle orthopaedic surgeons to complete it's program? If not, what measures have been taken to fulfill these potential deficiencies?

Also, I've had some difficulty getting in touch with the residency coordinator over at U Mass by phone and email over the past couple weeks. Is she still around?

Newgal: You should definitely come and check us out if you are interested in the program. Our program has more females than most programs, the PGY-3 class have 3 out 4 females. The rumor about our Chairman not recruiting women is false. It is true in the last 4 years that he has been here there is less woman recruited, but that is due to the fact that there is less women applying to Ortho = less get interviewed = less is ranked. If you rank a few woman in the top ten, it is not for sure that you will get any of them. Doing an away rotation will definitely help you, because the residents have alot of input and the chiefs interview here. From my experience, the rotators that the residents ranked on the top of our list in the last couple of years has matched with us. (but you still need to have decent numbers)

Our Core lectures are 3 hours long every friday morning and those are given by the attendings. Weds morning is usually Grand Rounds or M&M conference, with Mon morning being fracture conference which is attended by some of the trauma attendings. Tues and Thurs is campus dependant, either OITE review or some kind of chief ran cases/lecture/ etc. I agree with Dr.Hibbert's input. Our program is definitely trauma heavy with the level I at University. We do alot of Joints, there is 4 joint attendings + a couple of private joint attendings that we have to cover. There is 3 spine attendings here and 2 pedi attendings + a shoulder guy + 4 full time trauma attendings. Also we have 3 sports guys and 2 other private attendings that will do sport cases. This year we will cover some of the Boston Bruins hockey games.

So we have a pretty comprehensive experience. Research is picking up in the last 4 years with the addition of 4 ortho research people, PhD and MDs, doing basic science and outcomes research. There is a group of bone basic science researchers here that is world famous and having a guy here winning the nobel prize in medicine this year really put Umass research on the map.

Bone saw: We are actively interviewing for an foot and ankle attending right now. I think 2 guys have came through in the last 3 weeks. We should get one soon and there is volume to add an 2nd foot + ankle guy once the 1st gets going. We just had a 3rd Ped and Adult Spine guy start this month and interviewing for a 4th spine guy. We have also interviewed an upper ext person in the last month. Tumor is very hard to get considering that Boston/Harvard have the best tumor guys in the country. Tumor cases are usually non urgent and they get referred out to the boston area.

Our residency coordinator was on vacation, but she is hard to get a hold of sometimes, just keep calling.
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Hope this helps, you can always PM me if you have any other questions.

Thanks for all the info UmassOrtho. I'm still trying to figure out where I want to do my aways but I'll definitely keep Umass on my potential list. I might wait and see if you guys match any females this year. I know programs go on "dry spells" with females sometimes and that it's just the nature of the match but from what I've heard there are more and more females applying and it doesn't look promising when a program has 4 years in a row of no girls. It's not that I wouldn't apply to Umass even with 4 classes in a row of no girls but I want to make the most of my away rotations since everyone here says they are so so important. We'll see - thanks for the advice.

This year we matched 3 guys from Umass, Eastern Virginia Medical School, and Univ of Pittsburgh. 1 GIRL from Univ of North Carolina. So YES, we do take girls into the program.
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Come and check us out.

Just so everything is in the clear, UMass has 4 spots, tentatively 5 for next year as was told on the interview to my buddy that interviewed there. I guess this might change next year, but on ERAS there are two choices of a regular 5 year track and a 6 year research track and there are 4 slots advertised. So going into the interview he had no idea that 2 research spots were offered OUTSIDE OF the match, as it wasn't stated in the interview packets that were mailed, etc. So if you are interested in just 5 years, there are only 2 spots available through the Match (may change in the future?) and if you get called about the research track (6 yrs), they tell you in the interview that you will have to drop out of the Match. So in the interview you basically have to state if you are interested in being there for research. My buddy said that he and others were a little miffed that they essentially interviewed for only two spots when they went into it thinking there were four.

Everything said above is true. Currently, we do have 2 spots in the 5 year track and 2 spots in the 6 year track. The 2 spots in the 6 yr is offered outside the Match, and the 2 spots for the 5 yr are inside the match. In the interview, you express interest for the research track or not, but you can also say that you are not sure about research. After all the interviews are done, either the PD or the Chair will call to make an offer for the 6 yr, if you take it, then you withdraw from the match. If not, you are still ranked the same place on the 5 yr track, it does not hurt you on the list for not taking the 6 yr spot. This is done to get the good candidates that really want to do research. The way I look at it is that if you really liked us and you get offered a "guranteed" spot in late Jan or Feb and you take it. You know where you matched 1 month before the actually match and it takes out the "Excitement" out of the Match and Black Monday, which can be good or bad for people. This is not done to trick people thinking that we have 4 spots but only 2 spots are available.

The rumor about the 5 th spot is true, we will find out in July whether we get approved for the extra spot which will probably be an extra 5 yr spot. (3 + 2) The best way to see a program is by doing an rotation, if you have any interest in Umass or any other program in the country, then set up an rotation with them to experience the program first hand.

Also, I would interview at programs based on whether I am interested in that particular program and not on how many spots that I am interviewing for or what is my chances of matching at that program. If you are a good applicant and a particular program really liked you, you can match with that program even if there is only 1 spot available. But if you are a tool, you might not match at a program with 12 spots avail.

In response to the criticism that UMass misleads people into interviewing for 2 match spots when they expected 4...

Keep in mind that most schools will interview (in my experience, and from interview trail hearsay) anywhere from 10 to 25 people per residency position, depending on the school. Statistically, based on 4 spots, I think UMass probably fell somewhere below average... Even if you eliminated the 2 research spots entirely, its probably still lower than a lot of other schools in terms of interviews/position. Besides which, there are plenty of other schools with 6-yr tracks included in their resident quota. The fact that UMass offers the spots before the match doesn't make them any different than another program you might interview at with a 6-year spot. If you aren't interested in research, those spots are null-and-void to you as well.

Not to mention, very few programs advertise the number of people interviewed per position. Even if playing the statistics was the right way to do things (and I agree with UMassOrtho that it isn't), you wouldn't have the stats to judge other programs you applied to anyway.

If a certain program really appeals to you, these issues shouldn't even matter.