Summa?

From what I have heard, it is a great program. This program will make sure you become a great orthopaedic surgeon. They do a lot of cases. The only downfall is that residents sometimes don't have enough time to do research because they are doing so much surgery. However, if you don't have time, they have a great musculoskeletal lab to satisfy most of your research needs. All the residents get pretty fellowships too. Summa has no fellows, so no competition there. I know I'm definitely applying there. Hope it helps.

dont forget not everyone WANTS to do research, beyond what is required of coruse. Kudos to you if you like it, but some people just want to get a great clinical experience and could care less about research (this is good to keep in mind when picking programs to apply to, cause if you dread the idea of research and you match at somewhere that expects the residents to publish a lot, well there will be a lot of frustration on both ends)

I was less than impressed with this program despite the self glorifying atmosphere and the self-agrandizing crystal clinic. It has a very militaristic feel and if that is up your alley, you will love it. It is true that you operate early and often, which on the surface sounds great. The problem, as admitted by many of the attendings, is that the patients are private patients and the attendings are very possessive. While you may scrub on a lot of cases and get to do some of the case, there is very little autonomy (except with 1 or 2 attendings). You learn a lot initially but then you hit a very defined ceiling. One of the joint surgeons will hardly let the residents do anything, and has a PA who closes. While things are broken into services a little, you frequently don't know until that morning what cases you are scrubbing for the day. (ie not a lot of time to prep). God forbid you are one of the residents pegged as not conforming to the "stepford" atmosphere, or not scoring above the 98th percentile on the OITE, which is taken VERY seriously. Foot and ankle, and sports are weak, tumor is strong. There isn't a lot of continuity of care as you frequently don't meet the patient you are operating on until they are on the table, and since the rounds are random, you may never see them post-op unless you make the effort to do so. All which sounds really cool, but someday you are going to have to do more than just operate on your patients (much to most of our dislike). The attending staff is rather inbred. Most were trained there, which affects the diversity of what you will see. Two of the newest, young, very well trained staff stayed for less than 2 years before leaving. The bottom line is that most of the residents finish with pretty good technical skills on open procedures, but there is a paucity of experience with overall patient management. The benefits of the hospital itself are awesome. Free food, higher pay, free parking, great workout equipment on the ortho call floor (which no other residents have access to). Most of the inpatient's medical issues seem to be well managed by the hospitalist service (a very nice bonus).