Program Review
Staff / Faculty / Chairman
Many of the faculty have strong personalities, of which they are not hesitant to share. With some, their approach to problem solving is needlessly antisocial. This could be temporarily tolerable if there was not a constant schedule change each week with another prima donna with which to keep from being underfoot.
Didactics / Teaching
There is lecture each morning on powerpoint on a variety of orthopedic topics. These are given by faculty and residents and are helpful. The times and locations of lecture were slightly unreliable and would change also according to the service you were on. Being in the right place at the right time depended wholly on whether your resident knew where to be and if they thought of communicating that to you in time.
Operating Experience
Depending on the attending, as a student, you can be sitting out or be first assistant to the resident. I found that more often than not I was much less active in the OR than I had been in other rotations.
Clinic Experience
This mainly consisted of shadowing either the resident or attending.
Research Opportunities
Other than the occasional case report, there were very limited research opportunities.
Residents
Are helpful, but too busy to bother with teaching students. Understandable, but a complete contrast to what I have seen at other orthopedic rotations.
Lifestyle
Residents know how to make the most of their time and have fun together. Call is manageable.
Location / Housing
Most residents live in Crestline Village, which is a nice area of Birmingham (in the city of Mountain Brook). It is safe, reasonably close, and with a great school system.
Limitations
The program as a whole seems strangely disorganized, but with time, I believe this can be overcome. As a resident you see a wide variety of cases and work with many great attendings. There is an emphasis on written exams and preparing well for that, more so than I have seen at other programs.
Overall Rotation Experience / Conclusion
The rotation seems to be structured much more towards getting attending / student introductions, whereupon they can make brief assessments of your ability to be an appropriate resident. There are several flaws in this system, the main of which is that the student is left with much less of a learning opportunity than is achieved at other schools.
