female friendly programs

U of Chicago is close to 20% women (current intern class is 3/4 women)

bcc,

the only programs i have first hand knowledge of are Cincinnati which is my home program and Loyola where I rotated. Both seemed very interested in bringing more women on and I felt very comfortable at both.

i heard while on the interview trail that kentucky, indiana, emory, rush and louisville where not so women-friendly. i applied to all and was wait-listed at indiana and outright denied at the others. all the other places i interviewed were at least interested but there were those where i got a certain vibe that they particularly wanted women and those were UIC, OSU, Pitt, Baylor, Johns Hopkins, CMC. Good luck. Feel free to pm me if you have any more questions.

This is usually a topic that generates some very interesting discussion. A few words of advice. Becareful when looking for "female friendly" programs. It's hard to get a true handle on that. Many times you won't get a feel for this until you interview.

1. Be careful when looking into programs which have no women and have never had a woman. I guess someone has to be the first, but residency is hard enough w/o having to tackle gender equality issues too.

2. Gut feel is the best measure. If a place feels anti-ovary, it probably is.

3. If a female resident pulls you aside and says "don't come here," that may be a place to avoid like the plague.

4. Some programs are only as "female friendly" as their last good female resident. Meaning. . . .as soon as they get a bad one (or pregnant one), it may be a long time before they take another. . . .if ever.

5. Places with multiple female faculty and residents are probably a good bet for being female friendly.

6. Just because you get an interview at a place, doesn't mean they like women. Some consider it the PC thing to do.

7. Beware of places that have "fired" female residents (see #4).

8. If they take you by the call room on the tour and there are centerfolds and or other porn-related material in plain site, that should raise a flag or two
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Here's my take on the places I interviewed at 4 years ago

1. Mayo - receptive to women. Had a few in the program.
2. Cincy - No women. Definite sausage club. I can't believe they've changed in such a short period of time.
3. Harvard - women residents and faculty. receptive to women.
4. Loyola - recently fired a female. Unsure if receptive to XX.
5. Kentucky - Probably would rather go w/o a resident than have a female.
6. Cleveland Clinic - Female faculty/resident. Definitely receptive.
7. MSU kalamazoo - Porn in call room (see #8 above).
8. Indiana - No way in hell.
9. Toledo - Had a female resident. Mildly receptive.
10. Henry Ford - Not sure
11. Howard - Female faculty. Receptive to having women.

By no means is any of this law. Just MY 2 cents.

"6. Just because you get an interview at a place, doesn't mean they like women. Some consider it the PC thing to do."

---

Bone Jock----

I think raises an interesting point. While on the trail, I was at several programs that flat out did not have any women there on interview day. However other places had quite a few interview applicatnts that were female but only one or no female residents in the program. Which begs the question, are these legit interviews or do places just interview different "types" of applicants to give the illusion of diversity in ortho.
I am interested to hear what people think about this.....if this is a tactic that goes on or just my individual experience.

I would second bone jocks info on Indiana and Kentucky. I was told by multiple residents at IU that they would not be taking any females when I interviewed and was told by a resident and an attending at Kentucky that orthopaedics was a male specialty. Kentucky had six women interviewing the day I was there, but I doubt the attending was as candid with them, but that also supports the fact that getting an interview doesn't necessarily mean female friendly.

IU actually has a female intern right now and Dr. Stewart, one of the Ortho Trauma staff, is female and pretty involved in the residency program. Seemed to be as many females on my interview there day as there were anywhere else.

If my facts are correct, there has been another female in the last five years, who eventually switched out of the program and may have left a bad environment for applying females. However, it appears that with the addition of Dr. Stewart and a female intern, that it may not be the case anymore.

I also heard from a resident at a program that shall rename nameless that they wern't taking any females regardless because of previous bad experiences. And then there was Stanford which pulled the women aside after the interview and gave them special interviews because they were recruiting females.

shit i guess it was a great decision to cancel my stanford 13h interview

1) would've missed 2 interviews in nyc the next day....shitty weather in nyc on the 14th

2) chances of me matchng there is almost nil.....no cali ties, non rotator,a nd with ur comments above. whew!! dodged one...

BTW; i belive columbia is also very famle friendly........
And in general i'd assume Northeastern programs would be more female friendly compared to the big10/b1g 12 programs.

Thank you all for you input. Its definitely eye opening, and so important. I am from California, and some what interested in going back there. So with jalby's experience at Stanford they may be open to women, what about other schools? I have heard the director at UCSD hates women. What about UCD and UCSF? I went to UCLA and worked with Dr Finerman in the athletic training room. He was really unimpressive in general towards his patients and students, so I can't imagine that he would be interested. What about Colorado? Thats another program I am interested in.
Thanks again for the help
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I can assure you that no one at UCSD hates women.... we have 3 outstanding female residents currently in the porgram. During our recent interviews 7/35 applicants were female. In addition, our director of trauma, Dr. Schwartz, is XX and one of the most admired faculty.

If anything, I would put UCSD on the "female friendly" side of the equation.

I second bonejocks thoughts on cincy, IU, and kentucky. Its hard for me to imagine that cincy has changed that much in 4 years. An interviewer told me he was glad he was finished interviewing all the "damn chics" for the day. However I do feel that a programs attitude can change as new classes/faculty go through. The guys who were chiefs and pgy4s when I started certainly had different views about women then our current bunch. I am at the program with dirty magazines in the call room bone jock was refering to. The one guy that always left that shit lying around is gone. Coincidentaly it was the same guy that liked to arm wrestle applicants. (remember that Bone Jock??)

Use your gut when all else fails.
Good Luck

Ah, I remember the "arm wrestling incident" very well. I still feel like a puss for backing down. Although it wouldn't have been a good career move if I had ripped some resident's arm off. That was an interesting Christmas party. I can't believe that was 4 years ago.

wow, maybe if i'm lucky, i'll get whacked over the head with a club and dragged back home to my rightful place by my hair.
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No. 1 Univeristy of Rochester/strong memorial: on average a female a year and a large number of female faculty.
#2 Wake Forest is probably 40% F resident's .

To add to the list of female-friendly programs:
U Penn, Columbia, U of Minnesota, UCSF and George Washington all stood out as programs who 1) had many female residents/faculty and 2) were not hung up on gender. My second point is important because even if a program expresses interest in having female residents, it does not mean that the female residents in that program are treated the same as their male counterparts.

The program that stood out as particularly hostile to women was SUNY Stony Brook. A couple of my interviewers were openly hostile about their female resident and I was advised by a resident in the program to look elsewhere.

Being a female and having just completed my fellowship at Vanderbilt I would consider them "female friendly" for both residency and fellowship (trauma). Also, University of Arizona is a small program but they currently have 4 female residents and several female faculty.

I writing as a female resident from Stony Brook to hopefully let any other females looking for programs know that our program is not as bad as it was recently made out to be. I am very sorry YOP that you got the impression you did, because i think it was pretty misrepresentative of our program. We have 4 women now...one 3rd year, one 2nd year, and 2 interns and while i am only an intern, my experience with the ortho dept has been nothing but a positive one.

I think that Stony Brook's reputation has come partly because there have been several women who have left the program in recent years... but if you look at the individual situations, many were personal decisions that involved wanting to be closer to significant others or simply not wanting the surgical lifestyle.

I think that in any program you go to...there is always going to be someone, some resident or attending, who thinks that women don't belong in orthopaedics. It is still a male dominated field, and while i think it is great that more and more women are entering, prejudices and opinions do not change overnight. Even when I was interviewing, I had one fellow interviewee tell me that someone at one program told her females "dilute" the applicant pool because we don't have to be as qualified as the guys. Honestly that last thing i would want is someone telling me i got my spot because i am female and not because i was a qualified applicant who they thought would fit well into their program.

That being said, I think some quailities you could look for in a program are female attendings (of which Stony Brook has one) and willingness to take female residents (not just the "token" female once every few years). Stony Brook took 2 females my year and 2 the year before, though one left after internship for geographic and lifestyle reasons.

Anyway, I'm just trying to give a realistic view of the situation. yes, there are some programs that took a majority of females last year (UChicago 3/4 and Arizona 2/3, both of which i have med school classmates at), but I wouldn't expect those same schools to repeat this year. the applicant pool is still only a small percentage female so if you look at the odds, they are very slim.

If anyone has questions about Stony Brook or otherwise, please ask me. We are not a hostile or malignant program...the other residents are great and the attendings that i have worked with this far have been fantastic, so I hope that one person's opinion will not dissuade others from looking into Stony Brook.

I did not get any special interview at Stanford. I didn't hear of any special interviews form people who interviewed the day before either. I wonder what jalby was talking about. There were plenty of females interviewing with me that day though. My home program USC consistently takes female, and I have talked with some attendings about why this is. They told me they don't really pay attention to gender, they just want people who are going to work well together and get the job done. At UC Davis I had a smaller sized female resident on the team and she got some teasing on big trauma cases, but nothing that seemed too much to handle (the male residents also got teased if they weren't able to get the reduction). At UF at Jacksonville the females I was on service with seemed to be happy with the program and the attendings seemed to treat them equally.

I'm an intern at the University of Michigan. We have several female residents (1 PGY1, 1 PGY2, and 1 PGY3). We also graduated two women last year. We also have several female faculty members (2 Pediatrics, 1 Onc). I think this is a program that is certainly friendly to women. If you have any questions, please feel free to send me a PM and I'd be happy to put you in touch with one of the female residents.

for Columbia:
2/6 incoming interns are female
1/6 current interns
2/6 current PGY2's
2/6 current PGY5's