Received via PM to post anonymously a review of Largo, FL ortho program
Program: -Largo Medical Center---Largo, FL
General: Welcome to sunny Florida. This is a great program. Underrated because it's relatively new. Will be taking 2 residents per year from now on. No rotation as a resident will be further than 30 mins from the base Largo Medical Center which is in the greater Tampa area, except for 1 (Peds). They cap their rotating medical students.
Attendings: Just added another attending starting next year and have had an influx of young talent coming in the last couple years. Program Director (Dr. Harker) will operate on anything and is top notch. Dr. Wood (also operates on anything) is one of those old time DOâs thatâll say and do anything. Both will let residents do entire case, no matter what year you are, if youâre prepared, youâll do it. Dr. Scott and Dr. MacLaren are the sports docs who are in a partnership with Tim Tebow and Chipper Jones and deal with a lot of professional athletes. The upper extremity doc is Dr. Marcott who did his hand fellowship at Harvard. Those are the main ones you will work with during audition rotations. Many more but you will rarely work with them unless you are a resident.
Residents: Residents are top notch. PGY 5 just got accepted to the Dr. James Andrews sports fellowship. The 2 PGY 4âs have been accepted to Spine and Joint fellowships respectively. They operate a lot, and donât necessarily work INSANE hours. The attendings are good about letting them get hands on experience. Residents feel comfortable letting students do a lot because theyâre confident in their own abilities. Fun group, a lot of characters and everyone is always joking. Single and married/engaged. They get along well. There are no females currently in the program. Normally one resident per attending. Match 2 students per year.
Didactics: Didactics are Monday morning. Fracture conference from 630-800. Lectures and OITE questions from 8-12. Probably the weakest part of the program is the lecture series starting at 8. Nothing out of this world. Good news is they do OITE questions.
Operative Experience: As a student, especially with the program director you will get unbelievable OR experience and face time. Residents arenât granted access to all the hospitals he goes too, so you will be first assist on many cases. He allows you to do 90% of IM nails for intertrochs. He allows you to dissect down on and do as much as you are comfortable doing with THA. You make cuts for your TKAâs, put in screws, close majority of the cases. Great operative experience. Best I have heard of. He is very patient and makes fun of you the whole time, but in a very benign/funny way. Saw PGY 2âs take the lead on multiple cases while PGY 5 was 1st assist and attending not being scrubbed in. This happens a lot. Operate early and often as a resident. 8 months of surgery 1st year (6 being Ortho). Many other programs only do 3-4 Ortho. Residents are very prepared and have great hands.
Clinic Experience: Each attending has their outpatient clinic that resident will go to. Nothing major, normal clinic. Once or twice a week depending on what service you are on. This is big for students to get face time with attendings. Attendings speak with students quite a bit, and residents do a good job of not getting in the way of that.
Research: Research is not a big deal at this program. They did not mention it much. Residentâs not very involved in it.
Lifestyle: Call is taken at home, and is not crazy at all. May get 1 or 2 consults, but also may get none. Many times the consults can wait until the next morning, if you even get one. Tampa is 25 mins from the hospital, and Clearwater beach is 5 mins away. Itâs Florida, which says a lot in itself.
