kentucky/west virginia

Have not rotated there, however, a recent graduate of my school is now a first year intern there and reports having a great time...for an intern that is
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Here are some comments about the program from another site and there is also an extended old post on this site about both programs. Hope this helps, and Godspeed.

Schedule

Very strong clinical program. Residents are a happy bunch. Great quality of life with home call for 5 years. Morgantown is a very nice small city, a mecca for outdoor enthusiasts! Best whitewater kayaking city on the east coast. Great mountain biking.

Teaching

The clinical faculty is growing. Right now in need of additional hand, sports, and foot/ankle staff. Current faculty are a good mix of young, energetic guys combined with older, more experienced surgeons. Residents work at both WVU (major teaching hospital) and Mon General (smaller, private hospital). Great experience to see how the private life compares with university life!

Atmosphere

Great group of residents. Nice mix of single/married residents. No major conflicts among 15 residents (3 per year). I have a good life: I own my own house, have a dog, race mountain bikes year-round and kayak as much as I can.

Conclusion

Come and spend a month with us and you'll be very pleasantly surprised that this is one of the top clinical programs on the east coast! We encourage interested medical students to spend a month with us. Contact me at [url=mailto][email protected][/url] for more information. I'm a third year WVU resident. Often, we can arrange free housing.

Here's a second:

Schedule

Very good workload with a balance between time in clinic and the OR. On the med student elective you rotate between different services for a week which is good because you get to meet almost all the residents and faculty

Teaching

Great conference schedule with some neat anatomy dissections, arthroscopy lab and access to a teaching microscope.

Atmosphere

They have a great group of residents that enjoy being out of the hospital more than being at work. However, they like what they do. They also let students on Sub I do a lot.

Conclusion

Strong clinical experience. Small number of faculty but they are growing. Their graduates "choose" to do fellowships and are not forced to because of inadequate training. I would go there in a second. Big nearby academic centers like Pitt get all the attention but I'd put one of the WVU residents up against a Pitt grad and bet they are better trained. Nice lifestyle while in training too...cheap housing, safe, lots of great outdoors stuff plus you have the University there in town(and the town is growing fast).

Also, talk to Wildcat on this site, he is a first year intern at Kentucky.

E-mail Dr. Silverstein on WVU at [url=mailto][email protected][/url] He is a former resident and current attending there. He answered several questions and hooked me up with a resident when I e-mailed. As for Kentucky, Wildcat is a common poster in the forum and will likely fill you in on it. He is a new intern and seems really happy to be there.

About Kentucky,
I was fortunate enough to start out on ortho and let me tell you there is no place I'd rather be. The residents are a great bunch of guys, definitely a jock-type program. So far the attendings have been great, very approachable and interested in teaching. UK Trauma is BUSY AS h$%&! This place is inundated with reckless hillbillies hepped up on white lightening and chewing tobacco chasing semi trucks while riding ATVs and well... we all know what happens next.
Lexington is a great town... easy place to live, own a house etc.. and, the scenery is terriffic, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
About the rotations. The intern year is pretty sweet, q3 most of the year. Three months of ortho, and anesthesia month, plastics, neuro, CT, vascular, no critical care. q5 for all others. If you need more info e-mail [url=mailto][email protected][/url]

sweet, getting a rotation set up at kentucky. i did hear that west virginia's chairman had left, and they are now missing some sports, joints, and foot and ankle attendings. what have you guys heard about stuff like that - i know a lot of programs are in flux; how long does it take to recover; i.e. would i feel it by the time i was a resident, and how much does it matter not having attendings in certain areas- how common is that? )

I spent four years in Morgantown as a WVU medical student. I also was the only one in my graduating class interested in ortho. I started getting to know the residents during my third year, and then during my fourth year I was around them a lot more. I echo everything that was posted by BusyBone. There is some flux right now with a new chairman but this will be very positive. At WVU both Gen Surg and Neuro Surg got new chairmen recently and both departments are now 100% better. The exciting part for Ortho at WVU is that their department was 10 times stronger than those departments before the chairman left. Should only make the program better as Dr. Blaha (former chairman) and the dean of the med school didn't get along too well. The backbones of the program are Drs Hubbard (trauma) and France (spine and trauma). They are resident friendly, med student friendly people who enjoy teaching. The residents are a tight knit group who work hard and also play hard. I didn't match at WVU and while I'm very happy about where I am I can't help but miss those guys.

Ace, where did you end up matching and how is the first month going?

I am at Ohio State and having a wonderful time. I'm on ortho these first 3 months. I echo Wildcat in that it is busy as h$%&. At WVU we got our share of drunk rednecks on ATVs. Here in Ohio we get our share of P!$$ poor drivers who like to cross the yellow line separating northbound and southbound traffic. Great experience, got to reduce 2 distal radius fractures on my first night of call and have relocated 2 posterior hip dislocations. Not too bad for the first 3 weeks.