- Staff / Faculty / Chairman
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Used to be a top notch program when Dr. Grana was chairman and Dr. Ruth was program director. After Dr. Grana stepped down (and unfortunately passed away), the culture in this program has been downhill. New faculty members are recents graduates of the program are malignant (most from east coast) and the direction of the program is heading in that direction. Malignant pimping is common and certainly not a laid back program.
As a medical student from this place, there is very little motivation from program director to recruit or mentor students from U of A. Since number of Ortho programs are limited in the southwest, students from U of A are at a disadvantage when applying due to lack of support, ability to get letters or research opportunities. More students from Tucson, rotate at banner, since the atmosphere is friendlier and preference given to Arizona residents. The program director who took over after Dr. Ruth was promoted to chairman, openly is biased against students from Arizona and ranks students from East Coast schools to where he has connections (e.g. Georgetown) and has not matched any students from U of A the past two years even though we had many qualified students that matched at good programs outside of the state despite ranking U of A high.
The faculty members are very bitter and don't like the recent circumstances with the surgery department (chairman ousted, lack of funding, new administration). They were openly against the chairman who was ousted (still was head of surgery when I was rotating) and that trickled down in terms of bitterness and lack of enthusiasm. Hopefully with the new administration that will change.
- Didactics / Teaching
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The only good thing about the program is that it is close knit and plenty of didactics and teaching within the program. Although M&Ms and resident presentations have some malignant pimping (mostly due to some of the faculty members), there are some good resident run teaching sessions.
- Operating Experience
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Another strong point is the residents are trained pretty well in the OR. Lot of freedom is given by the attendings. Disadvantage in terms of rotation is that your Peds rotation is done in Utah and Oncology is done in Phoenix, so if you are interested in those subspecialities you will have a poor experience since they are not part of the home institution.
- Clinic Experience
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Residents are given good independence and experience. Hand/Foot&Ankle/Trauma are strong specialities in this program and residents are trained well for those subspecialties.
- Research Opportunities
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Very poor. Some changes made with one foot and ankle attending that dedicates most of his time with research. The program tries to flaunt its research during away rotations with a dedicated Orthopedics surgery research lab. Due to poor funding, very few publications come out of the department and residents don't get a great experience compared to other programs. Not the fault of department for the current situation in terms of lack of funding.
- Residents
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While residents get along pretty well with each other, they are for the most part unhappy with the faculty members and experience at the program compared to their peers at other programs. The current program director is not responsive to their concerns and brushes off any recommendations made by residents by telling them to "deal with it". Significant change from when Dr. Ruth was program director when he was more responsive to resident concerns.
- Lifestyle
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Due to the small nature of the program, residents work harder than other programs with limited time to study for OITE. In addition, there is lack of PAs/NPs due to once again lack of funding forcing residents to do more scut work than usual.
- Location / Housing
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Not much to do in Tucson if you are around the area. Housing is extremely cheap (Can get a 3-4 bedroom condo at a really nice area in Catalina Foothills for 900-1000 dollars). Lack of fellowships around the area, makes it important for residents to make connections outside the state after finishing the residency. On the other hand, there is no fellow to fight over for cases (which the program tries really hard to emphasize during interview, although the real reason for lack of fellows is due to lack of funding).
- Limitations
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As a medical student from this institution, it is disappointing to have a program that completely dismisses or makes no effort in recruiting people from the home institution. Most residents that train tend not stay in arizona and further adds to shortage of physicians we have in this state. In addition, due to competitive nature of orthopaedics, I was forced to do aways at other instutions and work my but off to get chairman/PD letters that helped me secure a residency spot that I was unable to achieve at this institution (letter was given, but poor effort from them to get to know me in order to write an excellent letter).
For residents matching here, Peds/Oncology training is probably one of the worst in the country since you go to another institution for it. If you are interested in those specialties, you will have to gain exposure in fellowship. The department is bitter due to lack of funding and in fighting between the Surgery department. No resident support from PD and although the chairman was good when he was PD, currently has winded down from his responsibilities with residents.
The PD and Chairman does the rank list and completely ignores the comments or recommendations from other faculty members. So as long as you can impress them, you can match and have a good time during the residency. Burn bridges with them (especially the PD), you will have a miserable time. Some residents have dropped out of the program for multiple unknown reasons the past few years (mostly due to the malignant nature of the program and significant shakeups within the surgery program).
- Overall Rotation Experience / Conclusion
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The student rotation is very important part of them ranking you if you rotate. I rotated through 2 (2 week) rotations that are chosen randomly. There is any 30-40? question MC (poorly written test) that heavily weighs on the final rotation grade. The whole rotation is not useful and it is quite stupid that the poorly written test can determine your grade. You also have to do a presentation in front of attendings (with some malignant pimping) that always will affect your grade. You also get to do nothing in the OR as a student and are just shadowing as opposed to other away rotations around the country where I learned more and had more OR/clinic responsibilities. I didn't even suture once during this rotation. As my first rotation, I got very little experience and made it difficult for other aways after (e.g. suturing).
Overall, if you have great stats and aren't from this institution, I would highly recommend not doing an away, since it can more likely hurt you rather than help you. (many residents from past did not do a rotation here). If you are from this institution, due to the preference of the PD you are at complete disadvantage of matching here regardless of your stats. (you have a better chance of matching at Banner in Phx which is ironic). The quality and experience of the residents are getting worse every year and only way the program will get to the point where it was when Dr. Grana was chairman is change in PD/Chairman and culture of the program.
