Here are my two cents about the programs I rotated at as a student.
St. James Olympia Fields/Chicago. First of all it's in a great city. The med student rotation is kind of limited (especially for a 4th year)...only allows you to rotate at Chicago Heights and Olympia Fields (you don't do surgery at OF, you only see consults there). As a 3rd year the rotation is much more rounded with OR balancing clinic days. However as a 4th year, it is basically clinic with OR on the side. The reason for this is that the PD makes most of the decisions who gets in; so face time with him is very important. The roation is nothing special but a good learning experience. You sure get practice on your clinical skills. The program director is not the coolest person in the world but he cares about learning and allows med students to even dictate his notes. The PD will stick up for his residents without a doubt (I saw this first hand on my roation). The other rotations that the residents go to are better..Northwestern (Hand), Weiss (Univ of Chicago/joints), Advocate Christ (UIC/Trauma I center/Peds), Shriners (Peds), Cook County (Trauma I), Ingalls (sports/foot/ankle), Little Company of Mary (General/spine). The best thing about this program is that a resident will work with over 30 attendings during his/her 5 years, see multiple hospitals, and work with all the Chicago residency programs, which makes this one of the best DO programs. The residents here share attendings with NW, Rush, UIC, Univ of Chicago and work side by side with the residents of each program too. Residents are proficient in the OR, get tons of experience, lots of autonomy (the most I saw out of all programs). The 5th years are basically attendings here and get great fellowships. There is protected didactic time (3hrs every Wed) in addition to Journal clubs in the city. Big names here too...Finn (joints), Virkus (tumor/trauma), Garapati (trauma), Gourineni (peds).
Ingham/MSU. This was my home town program. I went to MSU for undergrad and worked at Ingham during undergrad so I knew the system. The special thing here is that they have their own Orthopaedic Hospital that is free-standing. It has 10 OR's and they are busy all the time. Didactics daily but are taught by residents (which is a DO theme). There is over 20 attendings with Spine, Foot and Ankle, Joints and everything in between. Lots of Sports guys too. They also cover the main Ingham hospital (300 beds) and Sparrow, which is 700 beds, Trauma I, and very nice to be at. However they don't get enough trauma there so they travel to OrthoIndy. Also travel to Cincinati for Peds. There is no MD Ortho program in town so you wont be competing for cases. I loved this program, the residents see each other everyday. Top tier DO program. The "Father of Arthroscopy" Lanny Johnson worked at Ingham so they are nationally known and everyone knows Dr. Johnson. He is not practicing much anymore but there are some big names (Dietzel, Taunt) at Ingham. Also, MSU sports medicine is run by the DO Ortho guys. The program director takes care of football mainly, another guy does MSU Basketball and another does Hockey. And then they split up the other sports (crew, gymnastics, field hockey, baseball, etc).
Henry Ford Warren MI. This program was OK. Nothing compared to Chicago or Ingham. Only 1 attending is fellowed in Joints (at the primary hospital) and he was not that good. Struggled with ACL's and shoulder scopes, was good with joints though. They rotate with other fellowed attendings at different locations. One of my fellow rotators from another school loved this program but it wasn't for me. Small base hospital, young attendings, and for the 5th years, one was good, the other I would not let him touch my mother. The good things about this program is protected didactic time once per week (taught by residents), good group of residents, older guys care about teaching younger ones. Journal club is usually at a nice place too (like Ruth's Chris). The attendings had a great attitude. One attending let me (as a student) be the primary surgeon on a fibular plate removal and he assisted me. I only rotated at the primary Warren and Macomb campuses so I did not see any other sites, so this eval does not involve all the sites. The other sites involve working one on one with an attending and basically shadowing him where he works (at clinic or OR days).
