I'm an R3 at UW right now and can hopefully answer some of your questions...Of course this will probably be somewhat biased though I'll try not to be. I have to say I love it here and I think if you speak to any of my other residents you will get a similar reply...We have added two residents per year and now take 8 per class
Overview:
Rotations at 5 hospitals all located close together. UW, Harborview, Virginia Mason, Childrens Hospital, and the VA
UW- University hospital...you spend parts of all years at this hospital. Call is usually once a week and one weekend a month. This is home call and you can expect to come in from home about half the time...usually for about an hour or two. This is where you get your Tumor, Joints, Foot and Ankle, Sports, Spine, and Shoulder experience.
HMC- Major trauma center for 4 state area including alaska...You spend a large portion of your 2nd year and part of your chief year here. As a two your job is to see, triage and treat all orthopedic ER visits. You will see every type of fracture including many open fractures, as well as complex pelvic fractures, put in 4-5 traction pins a night, place cervical traction, and reduce ANYTHING that is able to get dislocated (many hips, elbows, shoulders, ankles, and some knees). In general if its a bone you will see it broken and learn how to treat it...and most importantly will feel comfortable with pretty much any trauma when you are done. When on call with all this trauma you obviously don't have time to operate that night as in some other programs...Call is intense but is q5 or 6 giving plenty of time to get to the operating room and do some of the sweet cases you brought in...this is a recent change in our program as up to last year call was q3 and two's had all floor responsibilities...we now have Practitioners on all trauma teams so two's are free to go to the OR. Cases they are doing are simple ankles, nails, simple DHS hips, I and D's, Ex-fixes. Chief year is awesome...There is a night float for chiefs only (again new since last year) which has really allowed the chiefs to make the most of their time...Attendings have remarked how great it is to have people fresh to operate every morning...Your time is spent almost entirely in the OR operating...doing pretty much everything except for very complex peri-articular fractures or the complex pelvic trauma...there is a lot of this as well and this is what the fellows are there to do...
Childrens- part of 2nd, 3rd, and chief year are spent here. Generally doing basic childrens orthopedics...Standard childrens rotation...Call is q4 from home.
VM- part of 4th year spent here. Basically it is a private hospital offering private practice experience mainly in joints and arthroscopy.
VA- part of 2nd, 4th, chief years. General orthopedic experience in joints, arthroscopy, some tumor, and foot and ankle. Call is home call.
In general I think our operative experience is on par with that of other programs and is coming earlier and earlier with new nurse practitioners and PA's being hired. You will be able to handle any general orthopedic trauma when you leave. We have had people go strait into general practice from our program though most in the past few years have chosen fellowships in almost all fields.
One of the "intangibles" of this program is the faculty commitment to education. We have lectures and occasionally labs given each monday by a faculty member. I feel like this is a ton better than hearing a resident give a power-point on a topic they were assigned since you have an expert in the field there and can ask them anything...indications and journal clubs are also extremly valuable confernces compared to what I have observed at other programs...Faculty is extremly approachable and residents are frequently asked for their imput in regards to rotation changes, call schedules, and even in the hiring of new faculty or fellows...for example the shoulder service used to have two fellows. This was felt to be taking away from the resident experience in light of changes in operative volume and faculty changes...following resident suggestioins there is now only one fellow on the shoulder service. Also with the new switch from 6 residents to 8 residents a year the residents got together to design the rotation schedules for all years...IE we got to choose the path of our residency...One of the things we recently got together about that is pertenent to you all is that we were asked whether we felt all rotators or UW students should be granted an interview regardless of their application...We felt that with the costs of residency application being so high it was unfair to ask people back for an interview if we knew that they were not likely to be competitive to match here. Though this could leave to some people feeling disgruntled about "wasting" a rotation out here I think its a lot better than wasting not only the rotation but also another $600 for a roundtrip plane ticket and hotel room. We have once a month meetings with faculty to discuss these types of issues and all of our suggestions are listened to and most are implimented and if not we are given a clear reason as to why it is not possible. This is a program committed to their residents and I feel extremly lucky to be a part of it.
Also with regards to having time to experience seattle...I've gotten to do quite a bit of snowshoeing this winter in addition to having seahawks season tickets...Basically at all sites you are on call one weekend a month in all years but the R2 year...and I think for the 4 months as a chief at harborview....
If anyone has more specific questions please post them here. Good luck making your choices.
