Case intern here. I rotated here last year, and ranked the program number one.
I agree with what SexyD said above. Also look at past posts, don't know if I posted one, but BoneJock has a pretty detailed one from a couple of years ago.
One of the things I liked/like most about this program is that it IS very well-balanced, with big name attendings in many fields. Spine is obviously one of the strongest, with Dr. Bohlman (if you don't know who he is, ask one of your spine attendings), which is reflected by the incredible number of people going into spine from here. Joints is also strong with Dr. Goldberg. Trauma is very busy at Metro in the summer and we learn a great deal from Dr. Jack Wilber, who was president of AO North America. Drs Patterson, Roger Wilber, Sontich, and Vallier at Metro are also great trauma attendings. Peds is also very strong with Drs Thompson and Cooperman. We also have solid sports, foot and ankle, and tumor experiences here.
We are No. 1 in NIH funded orthopaedic research, and have been for several years. I'm one of the two residents doing the lab year, and my goal is to get at least one basic science paper out and maybe 4-5 clinical papers. There are multiple labs with concentrations in molecular biology, tissue engineering, and biomechanics/engineering. In addition, the attendings are all involved with multiple clinical research projects that you can get involved in.
The operative experience here is solid, compared to many other big academic programs. We only have spine fellows, and an occasional trauma fellow at Metro. So we're not competing with anyone for cases. Of course, your operative experience will vary depending on what time of the year it is too. At the end of the year, you're definintely gonna operate more as a junior because all the chiefs want to do is study for boards. That being said, we do 2 months of ortho as interns at UH, and I was in the OR every single day. I was making femoral cuts on total knees, putting in screws on plates, and one of my classmates did a DHS skin to skin. There's also ample supervision, so it's not like the residents are doing cases by themselves. You want a program where you have autonomy, but not so much that you're doing things the wrong way.
Calls at Metro are q6, and generally busy, which we do for 6 months as PGY2s and I think 2 months as PGY3s. We go to the VA as 3s and 5s, and it's all home call. At UH, there is a night float, which we do for 2 months straight as 2s, that starts at 6pm and ends after conference the next morning at 8am. If you're not on night float, you have around 2 calls per month on Friday, Saturday or Sunday morning as a 2. 3s have about the same at UH, except they're in house to back up the intern.
We do have structured morning conferences every day of the week. There's no specific OITE review conference because I think we pretty much learn everything we're supposed to know throughout our residency. I haven't heard of anyone failing boards here in a long time either.
Cleveland is probably one of the reasons more people don't want to come to this program. Coming from Chicago, I can tell you that Cleveland is a very liveable city. The cost of living is low, which allowed me to buy a house. My mortage + property tax is only about $100 more than what I paid for a 400sq ft studio in Chicago, and my house is like 20x bigger than that. We obviously have most of the major pro sports. There's decent cultural stuff if you're into that. There's a variety of restaurants, although obviously not as many as places like Chicago, NYC or LA. The women in Cleveland aren't completely hideous either, as I was led to believe before I came out here last year. There's a number of bars both in Cleveland Heights and downtown for single people.
Like one of my fellow residents said, "Case is an A+ program, in a B+ city." If you're interested in a career in academics, or just want a very solid well-rounded resident education that will prepare you well for private practice, take a good look at Case.
PM me if you have any other questions.
