Interviewed at both programs:
Temple: Good clinical program. Number of elective cases not that high at the main hospital, but you see lots of trauma. They rotate at Abington (a community hospital) and the residents said they get good operative experience there. The hospital is in a crappy area...residents seemed pretty cool. It's a good clinical program, very little research opportunities available. Don't go here if you want to do research. Program is inbred...this year all 4 residents are from Temple !! (granted they had 25 people applying) but still. I applied here because typically in the past only 2 residents had been from temple med. Only 1 interview day...met a couple of temple students there...one of them wanted to stay there...another couldn't wait to get out!
MCP-Hahnemann...Very nice chairman (Johanson) -- i'm from NY and a number of attendings I've worked with said nothing but great things about him. He's new and the program is in transition right now but headed in the right direction. When I was there, they had no spine surgeon on staff (he retired)...sports is strong there, as is joints (but another joints guy just left...i don't know if they're bringing in someone new). They rotate at St. Christopher's hospital and Shriners for peds (with Temple residents i think).. i don't think Shriners is a good pediatric experience (you don't see the bread and butter peds stuff) but you be the judge. They do foot/ankle at Penn I believe with a couple of big-name foot/ankle guys but I forget their names (Hecht?) Decent trauma experience...but there are many hospitals in Philadelphia (Jeff, Penn, Temple, Einstein)...and I'm not sure how much of it goes to MCP-Hahnemann...residents said they get sleep at nights so it shouldn't be that trauma-heavy (fine with me). There will be changes made to this program in the next few years, but i got the sense that there is great leadership there and that they're headed in the right direction. Talked to a couple of students from the school and they both wanted to stay there (I always took this as at least one indication of how good the program is)
One thing to keep in mind about philly is that malpractice premiums are exorbitantly high there and many surgeons are leaving the area...so it may be difficult to bring in good new faculty if someone leaves (see Hahnemann above)...i was told that through the grapevine so take it for whatever it's worth.
I ranked Temple No. 11 and MCP-Hahnemann #8.
