I wanted to reply to this post as I can remember looking on here a lot during interview season and although we all know to take these things with a grain of salt, they do likely impact opinions of places you interview.
I can refute the claims by kfed, as I am currently a 2nd year resident at VCU (or MCV as it is often referred). I can say that I am truly happy here, and I think I can speak for the rest of the residency as well. No BS intended.
Happiness is of course relative in residency, lets be honest - working 80+ hours a week, being tired, and not having enough time to see family sucks but it's universal across programs and across surgical specialties. But with the program, our faculty, our experience - I am quite happy.
In terms of our #'s of residents - it is true that two residents (who would now be upper levels) left a few years back. I never knew them but from what I've heard they both switched specialties (one stayed here at VCU, in Rads). They both had families and underestimated the time commitments needed to become a good surgeon. My understanding is that one resident was not in that good of favor with the department, but she was not fired. We took someone from G-surg and from Tulane (post Katrina). There has been no recent attrition or any hints of doing so. People change their minds; my home program lost residents as well... No need to hide anything here.
In terms of malignant atmosphere - this could not be more untrue. I've seen malignancy at a program I rotated at: constantly belittling junior residents, firing squads at fracture conference, etc. This does not happen here. Our faculty is actually quite friendly. I can think of two attendings who are a little 'gruff' but fall way short of having malignant personas.
Dr Zuelzer, a Sports guy and our program director, is really an advocate for the residents. He takes the program personally and seems to truly want us to learn and be happy with our training.
Our program is at a very busy inner-city hospital, and basically functions as the state's hospital for indigent care. We do see a lot of private patients (esp in Joints, sports, shoulder/elbow) but have an emphasis on trauma and indigent care. This is not your country-club program, but we take pride in being more 'blue-collar'.
Our strengths include Tumor (only place in VA for ortho oncology, two attendings - one goes to UVA once a week to help out there), Joints, Hand & Upper extremity, and of course Trauma.
Weaknesses include Spine (Neurosurg dominates most of it, we have one attending they have like 4 or 5 that do spine), and Research. Newly we've added more dedicated research blocks but noone here is that hard-core when it comes to pumping out papers. Our hand guy does do a lot of stuff in the Micro lab though so a bunch of residents jump on that.
In summary, if you're interested in a broad experience with a fairly needy patient population and are willing to work hard - this is a good match. As Junior residents we work hard, take a little more call, but we get lots of autonomy. After completing my night float block, there's not a single thing that can roll into an emergency room (and we see some crazy $hit) that I'm not comfortable managing.
I hope my willingness to respond provides more insight on the previous comments. I'm more than willing to answer any other questions you have about our program. No BS intended - after all, we only want people who want to be here as well.
Feel free to PM me or email me at [url=mailto]
[email protected][/url]
