End of a Dynasty?

I am currently (although not for long) a resident @ Wayne. It's true that the program is closing because Wayne State and the DMC could not reach an agreement on a new contract for the current orthopaedic department to cover clinical and emergency care. The 8 graduating seniors will not be affected. The current plan is for the 4th year residents to finish another year with whatever staff is left over. That leaves the remaining 24 residents (including me) looking for a new residency. We've been told by the RRC that they will facilitate our transfers by notifying all programs that we will be looking for spots and linking us up with programs interested in taking on another resident(s). We've already received a lot of interest from several programs, but 24 residents are still a lot to place. Supposedly our government money goes with us, but this has still not been made public yet. If any residents know that their program would be interested in us, please feel free to notify us in this forum.
As to your questions regarding the future of the DMC - they are basically screwed. The chief executive officer of the DMC, Mike Duggan, is delusional about the future of his orthopaedic coverage. He currently only has 3 orthopaedic surgeons signed on to replace 40 exiting residents and approximately 8-10 full time faculty. And there are rumors that those 3 may not even fufill their contract now that they know for sure that they won't have resident coverage. It's been estimated that the cost of replacing the orthopaedic coverage will be in excess of $10-15 million a YEAR if you consider the loss of government revenue tied to 40 residents plus the cost of hiring enough staff (who will want an exorbitant sum to work in an inner-city setting with no residents) and PAs to cover the workload. Even then, the quality of care will undoubtably suffer. They really don't have a viable plan and I wouldn't advise anyone to go there for emergency orthopaedic care after June 30th. They also think they are going to be able to start up a new residency program immediately, but this will take AT LEAST a year to get approved (if they can accomplish that, which I seriously doubt), and then they will have to build it from the ground up. That translates into a minimum of 6 years before they have a fully staffed and trained residency again.
Furthermore, I believe the "ripple" effects for the 3 hospitals we cover (Children's Hospital, Detroit Receiving and Sinai-Grace) will be huge. The other 15+ academic departments recently signed only a 9 month contract extension through December 2006. These recent developments, including the fact that DMC is openly recruiting osteopathic schools to set up a satellite campus there and WSU is looking to partner up with other local hospital systems forbodes a major rift between the two in the near future. I'd be wary of applying for a residency @ the DMC in ANY department.
Its truly sad because the program had a long history and has produced numerous notable orthopaedic surgeons over the years. There was also the potential to improve the orthopaedic program by hiring new staff and extending the contract, but both sides were equally stubborn. As residents, we were unfortunately caught in the middle. Now many of us have to sell our homes, pack up our families and move to a program where we might be viewed as "outsiders" stealing cases. Wish us luck!

Here is a link to the Detroit Free Press article regarding the closure of the program:

Very interesting, I never really believed the program would actually close, but it appears this is definately the end. I would be really pissed as a chief to have to finish with no residents and few faculty. It seems like they could make other arraingements. Anyway, good luck to all of the moving residents.

wayne_ortho,
private message me here about possible opportunities for maybe a few of you guys at another program here in michigan....

As one of the TUlane guys that moved to another program, the Wayne State guys actually have a better opportunity than we were faced post-Katrina. Our funding would not follow us since our program did not fold. That's the only way you can take the medicaid money with you...if your program folds. We had to get on the phone and find open spots...yellow pages style. Eventually it worked out well for both Tulane Ortho and those of us who are now elsewhere.
With that being said, I would say that over 90% of the programs we contacted said they would have taken us if the funding would have followed. Most prgrams are looking for more "whipping boys" I have a feeling the Wayne State guys will find ideal programs to finish their training. Good luck guys

The University of Kentucky has the capacity and approval to take on
one PGY 4 and one PGY 5 for next year. Please contact Brian Judge, residency coordinator at (859) 257-1007 x 230 or e-mail [url=mailto][email protected][/url] for details.

Good luck,
WC

Just to inform, I got a reply from University of Kentucky, this opening is only for displaced Wayne University residents

i was wondering if any of the residents displaced by katrina have any advice for the wayne residents in looking for programs to transfer to? who should they call within a program, anything special to say to help the process along? do things move quickly or do they stagger along creating more stress? thanks

Per emails from Dr Simon at Univ of Chicago and Dr Light of Loyola, those places will not take any residents. U of Chicago cited a lack of capacity and Loyola a lack of funds.

BTW, I think that it's far from certain that government funds go with the moving residents. Residency funding is fairly complicated, but the important thing to know is that each hospital can only train a certain maximum number of residents. So if you go to a hospital that has reached or exceeded its cap, that hospital will not be able to take additional dollars from Medicare (which is how the gov't funds residencies).

Bottomline, find a high volume program that needs bodies to get the cases done. That works best in terms of "not stealing cases" as well.

Have a look at this PDF:

For residents at Wayne State & Tulane:

If you have not been made aware, there is an unexpected funded PGY2 opening at the Univ of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital program starting July 1, 2006. If you are interested in the position please contact me at [url=mailto][email protected][/url]. Our Program Director, Dr. Frank Eismont, will be reviewing files next week and you would need to submit your paperwork. Thank you.


Carmen Fuente
Program Coordinator
Univ. of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital Orthopaedic Program
(305)585-1315

Aren't there any contractual obligations of the hospital or the program to the residents? Does this mean that the fate of Wayne State can basically befall any ortho resident should the program and the hospital have a tiff over money or whatever? Is there any recourse for the residents other than hope for a transfer?