Take this with a grain of salt because I am a current resident at Harbor.
Now that I am towards the end of my tenure at Harbor-UCLA, I wanted to let everyone know what an awesome program we have. The general set up is years 1, 2, and 5 exclusively at Harbor. This is a county hospital that serves over 1.8 million residents and is one of the 4 level one trauma centers in LA. All services except oncology are represented at Harbor.We have always been known for our trauma so I will mention this first. We do 6 months of trauma as a PGY 2, 3months as a 3, 3 months as a 4, and 3months as a chief. I think that the ACGME recommends 12 months so we only do 3 more than required. The trauma rotations are AWESOME. The 2nd years get comfortable with reductions and other ER procedures in the first couple months. You have a cast tech 24hrs a day (except sunday night) and 3 portable fluoros. Often subIs and interns are around to help and learn also. As a 2 you do the "simple cases"; ankles, forearms, distal radius, most nails, etc. You will assist on the more complex cases. As a 3 on trauma you are transitioning to a chief, and spend much less time in the ED. You will get to do more complex cases and teach the 2's. As a 4 you run your own service. This is the biggest step up in responsibility that you may have in your entire career and you will run your own trauma room. The 5 on trauma runs the entire service overseeing all scheduling and making sure the team runs smoothly. Drs. Zinar and Gold are awesome teachers and are more dedicated to the program than I can say. Every rotation is 3 months long. We have 4 residents per year.
The elective services at Harbor are run by a 5 and 2 team. Hand is very strong and is a busy service where you operate almost every day. Joints is excellent with Dr. Kwong and Schmalzreid. These are 2 of the best teachers around, although in different ways. Spine and sports at Harbor are a relative weakness but see below.
As a 3 and 4 you leave Harbor a lot to go on other rotations: Kaiser, VA, Cedars, UCLA, Shrine, research. All of these rotations are excellent and we have cancelled rotations that are not useful (eg Rancho Rehab, UCLA spine). Some highlights: Cedars is a great experience. We do spine and joints primarily but you have the opportunity to work with the trauma and sports guys also. Kaiser is a new sports rotation and you work with 2 awesome attendings that trained at Pitt and HSS. They are great teachers and let you do the scopes. Oncology at UCLA is also great, as you work with a true master, Dr. Eckardt (chair at UCLA). If he likes you he will go to bat to get you a fellowship spot.
If you want to do research, the opportunities are there. Recent residents have published multiple (>6 papers) while some do very little research. You have a 3 month research rotation as a 3. It just depends on how much a priority it is to you.
All of the details aside, this program is great bc the attendings are all there to teach and are easy to get along with. The hospital is actually fairly efficient with digital xrays, a dedicated ortho team (this is so important, more than I ever knew when I applied), and 5 super helpful PAs. We always have 4 interns on service, so as a resident you never do any floor work. Call is in-house Q5-6 for the entire 2 year, then 3 calls in-house/month for half of PGY3. After PGY 3 (only 6months of call) there is no more in-house call for your whole residency. As a chief you only take home call for 3 months of trauma Q3 and no call for 9months.
The south bay is one of the most desirable places to live with tons of stuff going on, not to mention the great weather.
More info is on our website, as well as the fellowships that residents have gone to. We do not expect any faculty changes (we just added shoulder and elbow, 2nd pelvic/acetablular, 3rd foot and anke, and 2nd spine attendings). The biggest change that is coming is a new trauma center which is being built. This will provide us with more OR time and more efficient treatment of our trauma patients.
We really feel that this is the best training in California and we recommend that you come do a rotation if you are interested. All rotators get an interview. But more importantly you will learn a ton. Multiple students told me that after a subI at Harbor they excelled using the practical knowledge gained at the next subI. You can call Mari,a our coordinator, at 310-222-2717 to schedule a rotation or to get a resident's email for more information.
BTW I am sure that USC is great, but the programs are very different even though people like to compare them.
