Opinion re: Southeast programs

no question campbell clinic is the better program. you're talking about one of the best programs in the country in terms of well-roundedness, operative experience, reputation, and trauma experience. baylor is not a bad program, but its just not on the same level as the campbell clinic.

agree with above

Go to Campbell Clinic hands down unless you have a desire to match in Texas for personal reasons.

Go for Campbell Clinic. It would open up a spot for me to interview at Baylor.

Trying to decide on Campbell Clinic vs. Baylor - both interview on the same day. Is anyone able to weigh in on one versus the other?

UF has a resident selection committee consisting of Dr. Vlasak (trauma) Dr. Scarborough (new chairman, oncology), Dr. Decker (spine), Dr. Moser (sports). The residents have a collective vote. The residents make their vote by basically doing a slide show of your picture and they talk about you; they vote off anyone that was clearly a bad fit, had a bad attitude, was lazy, showed up late, etc. I'm not sure how they proceed beyond that. Depending on how many students are present, your call will vary. I was there with 3 other students, so we did an approx Q4 call.

bump for more discussion.

I think that anyone who goes through this process realizes that it can be completely random. Why some people are granted interviews over others seems to depend more on what a faculty member had for breakfast that morning than perhaps the caliber of applicant, though many programs probably differ in their methodology (i.e. equations considering boards, 3rd yr clerkships, AOA, etc).

Another interesting point I heard made was that doing an away rotation will sometimes hurt your chances more that it helps you. This depends on how much input the current residents have, but it basically takes a single resident to hear or see you do one thing they don't like and to say "I would pass on this guy". I realize this is very program dependent, but often a short half day snapshot of your personality is more desireable than spending 80+ hours a week with a given student shadowing your every move. Before picking aways, I would examine how many current residents rotated as students if you can, though its not really easy to figure out.

I'm a 3rd year at Orlando, and in response to minifrag, that sucks that your opinion seems to have been swayed negatively. I hope you make the right choice for a program that fits you, and I can recall how difficult a choice that was. I hope I can shed some light on some of your assumptions.

1) We can be very busy...especially with trauma your first 2 years. Your 3rd year becomes night and day relaxed. You stop taking primary call and you only operate when on call. As an example, I only came in this weekend for surgeries, and mostly had my own room.

2)We have 14 residents currently. 9 are married, 1 engaged, and I am delaying the inevitable costly purchase (so 11 cohabitants, many w/ children). 9 or 10 own homes.

3)As for crazy questions... doesn't make sense. Don't understand why they would do that, but that is beyond me.

Again, just wanted to clarify some of your possible misconceptions. I wish you luck. The whole process can be painful.

I think this thread is good in outlining that there are many things several programs look at. I can guarantee that there are current residents of the program who didn't rotate at UF and have lower scores and worse clerkship scores than the ones presented here. It's hard to pin down one thing or another as to what pushes program directors and admissions committees to invite one person over another candidate or rank one over another. There are very few programs that have a strict, unemotional, completely objective way of ranking and interviewing candidates.

I've always been of the mentality that you should apply to a wide variety of programs and do away rotations at a similar variety if you are a risk averse person. There are many ways to play the "game" that is the interview season. Some people end up being more successful than others, and the difference between those that are successful and those that aren't is sometimes "millimeters" so to speak.

glad to see this thread getting some life. there are some really great ortho programs in the SE.

about chattanooga: i don't think they are a heavy numbers program. as always, it helps, but you don't need a 250+ to get an interview there.

as for florida being a numbers program, all i can say is that i didn't get an interview from Florida despite growing up 3 hours away from gainesville, having family as alumni from UF, being senior aoa, having all A's in junior clerkships and scoring 240's on step 1 and 2. i'm not saying that to be resentful or anything, i just think that in this day and age, you should pick your 4th year rotations wisely and if you don't have the numbers to get into UF, you *may* be better served spending your limited time rotating through other programs.

i also interviewed in orlando and i was bummed out because i would love to live there but :
1) the residents seemed super busy, maybe too much
2) few residents were married and owned homes, less family friendly which mattered to me
3) a couple attendings rubbed me the wrong way, saying they've made people cry and how would i deal with that, saying they weren't convinced i wanted to do ortho... blah blah blah. at this point, i don't need that. if they're not convinced, i've got 10 other programs where i interviewed where they were convinced i'll work my ass off and i that want to do ortho

Gainesville's reputation of a numbers program is somewhat deserved. Focus is on 3rd year clinical scores more than many other programs out there (not a secret... explained to those that interview and rotate), so that may be where the "numbers" come in. We benefit somewhat from having competitive applicants from across the country, so the difference between some applicants can be "numbers". That being said, I wouldn't say our program is much more focused on numbers than any other. Feel free to PM me if you have further questions.

Orlando did get approved for a fouth spot. And they only interviewed about 30 people. I dont think you will find better odds than those

I heard that Orlando Regional's program just recently got approval to expand to 4/year. Great chances at a great program if you interviewed there.

Kentucky takes 4 per year and was applying for a research spot that would give them 5 per year

In response to jd10's questions about South Alabama, I think it is kind of a forgotten place when people consider doing externships and I am not sure why this is. Perhaps it is because they have a lot of residents from south Alabama. I'm not sure but if you are truly interested, I think doing an away there would be really helpful. As far as experience, I got the impression that they get plenty of operative experience to go put into the community and practice. I don't think they told us the numbers at thee interview but I got the feeling their numbers are more than adequate. Hope this helps.

If you are interested in North Carolina (state not the school) then I highly recommend an away with a letter somewhere up there.

Also, you cannot possibly have a list of the SE without Campbell Clinic on it. You can do whatever you want coming out of there. As a prior poster (I believe falsely) alluded to, they do NOT run you into the ground except on trauma and that will be everywhere. You do 6 months as a 2, and 3 each year thereafter. When you are not on trauma your life could not be more cush. You are 1 on 1 with faculty and they only work 4.5 days a week. I rotated, loved it, and it is ranked quite high on my list. Your best chance for an interview is to rotate there. Your best chance for getting interviews at surrounding programs is to get a LOR from CC and make sure to send it to the regional programs.

My biggest advice to anyone looking to apply widely is to rotate in a wide geographic area and get letters from EACH program you rotate at. Use those letters regionally b/c it will definitely help b/c it implies an interest in the region.

About a few other programs in the SE and Texas that i rotated or interviewed at...non-exhaustive.

USouthFl - will be one of the best programs in the SE in the next few years b/c of the staff and money they have. Unbelievable program, very high on my list.

Baylor - Had a lot of turmoil recently b/c of financial/political problems with Methodist. New Baylor/Rice/Texas Childrens Hospital merger will help immensely. New Baylor hospital coming on line in early 2010. Felt the staff there are excellent.

UTSW - will beat you to death, bring you back to life, and beat you again. Rumored to be losing trauma staff to other program. Borelli a good guy though committed to making it an academic program.

While I now a little about several of these programs, I will lend a few comments to some of the programs on your list that I am a little bit more familiar with]

Thanks for the input!

MUSC: Seems like with that many rotators and so few spots MUSC may not be worth rotating unless you've some great numbers too. I really was thinking about rotating there...

Atlanta Medical Center: Not crazy about Atlanta, but good to hear the residents seems happy there. I may have to look more into this one.

Mobile: I like the city OK based on the few times I've been there. It's not too far from some pretty nice areas. Did the residents seem to get enough cases to be ready to go out into the community? I wonder why they don't get many rotators..?

I'm currently a 4th year resident @ Atlanta Medical Center. I'll try to be as objective as I can be but take it with a grain of salt since I'm a current resident.

As wareagle have said, I really believe we're a program on the rise. Dr. Steven Kane is a stand-up guy and a HUGE resident advocate. He's working diligently to improve our program. He's already gotten an approval for a new arthroscpic/cadaver lab for the residents and the vendors are eager to help us with the lab. This will be a great resource for us to practice our arthroscopic skills and try out new implants/techniques.

There are only 3 trauma trained orthopods in ATL and we now have 2 of them. I've personally worked with Dr. Ziran and I would let him operate on me any day. He's a master surgeon and very fun to work with. He's a huge addition to the program.

AMC is a level-2 trauma center but don't let that fool you. We're only a level 2 center b/c we don't have an in-house neurosurgeon. We get tons of cold-trauma from surrounding counties. We're #1 in helicopter transfers and 90% of them are blunt trauma with a lot of broken bones. but don't let the volume of trauma cases scare you. I truly believe trauma is where you learn your basic operative skills.

The strengths of our program are the residents, early operative exposure, and outside rotations.

We take 3 residents/year (15 total) and we really enjoy working with each other. We're not a malignant program and the residents have a major input when it comes to how things are run. We are a diverse group but that's what makes us great.

As an intern, you spend 3 months on the ortho service and you're expected to help out in the OR as much as possible. Just this week, the intern and I did 2 tibial nails. He did both cases (skin to skin) under an hour. I just held reductions.

During 3-5th year, we do most of our subspecialties with outside/prviate attendings. I think this is a big bonus since you get to work with them one-on-one and learn from some of the best surgeons in the country.

Dr. Lourie is the Braves hand surgeon and he loves to teach residents both in the clinic and the OR. He's the main reason I've decided to do hand surgery fellowship.

Dr. Gillogly is the head physician for the Falcons and the Thrashers. You actually go out to the training camp and cover home games on the sideline. I'm a die-hard Falcons fan and this was a dream come true! He also lets you operate. He has his own surgery center and usually runs 2 rooms. So you're expect to start the case while his PA is closing in the other room. When I was on his rotation, I did about 70% of the cases as a PGY-3. If it was a simple shoulder or knee case, he wouldn't even scrub.

Ok, but enough about bragging. We really enjoy having rotators. We don't have an affiliated med school so you don't have to fight against the "home" students. We also don't have 30-40 rotators so you'll definitely have plenty of one-on-one time with the attendings and the residents. We usually average about 10-15 rotators per year.

like most other programs, we strongly consider our rotators when it comes to ranking them. You guys spend a month with us and we get to know you pretty well. 10 of the 15 residents rotated as students.

Atlanta is a great place to live and work, both for singles and married. the cost of living is definitely cheaper than other major cities. AMC is a great place to work and train.

We invite you guys to consider us when deciding your away rotations. PM me if you have any questions. Thanks!

Thanks for the info!

I've heard a lot of good about campbell clinic. Any word on how much of a numbers program they are? I've heard they one of the south's top programs.

Also heard good things about UT Chattanooga, at least the area/city. Super-competitive or about avg for ortho?