Program Review
Staff / Faculty / Chairman
All great surgeons; stern but fair and really want the residents to be the best surgeons they can be. Chairman is Faerber, a very eccentric sports guy but sharp and responsible for a very high volume county hospital based program. You have to work hard to get on his good side. Caputo is vice chair and a renassance surgeon, hand and ue trained but does everything including pelvis. Others, Schlecter, top notch peds guys. Sherman and Yost, both phenomenal traumatologists. I never spent much time with the 2 to 3 spine guys but heard they were great, Steinman is very well known. Cruz is a great hand and ue surgeon. Cernyck is the foot and ankle guy, whom does the second highest volume of ankle replacements in California supposedly. Drinhaus and Ellis are the joints guys at county, both cool, opposite personalities from what saw, mellow and intense respectively. Powers is a great sports guy and former ASU and Ohio State quarterback.
Didactics / Teaching
Getting a lot better, daily topics for 45min were covered and there is an evening collaborative session with Loma Linda residents. Additionally, there is no shortage of workshops etc in the SoCal region. Usually for the week there was fracture conference, attending lecture, resident lectures, peds conference and then one other conference with night activities as well depending on the week. basically no shortage.
Operating Experience
Phenomenal, the best cases and most autonomy I saw anywhere both in the OR and the ER. You will graduate a great surgeon capable of whatever you desire.
Clinic Experience
Super high volume county hospital but you will see everything. Peds is at CHOC, a great children's hospital. In addition, joints, sports and foot and ankle are all at kaiser riverside which students students don't get exposed to but are supposedly excellent and high volume.
Research Opportunities
Getting much better, Schlecter the peds guys has brought this light years forward. I saw most of the residents writing publications that had top tier journal potential. Faerber is making a push and the future looks really bright for research. The setting is perfect and there is a lot of opportunities. Should be interesting as UCR ramps in its medical school.
Residents
Best group I saw anywhere I rotated. They work hard but they work hard together. The first 2 years are tough but then your last 3 you just operate and run clinic. Can't say enough about the entire group, both academically and surgical skill wise. In addition, they were all cool people to talk to.
Lifestyle
Poor but then again all surgical residents lifestyle is poor and you don't want a cake walk residency or you are not going to be a competent surgeon. soCal is not so bad because tons to do within an hour of the hospital and the weather is always good.
Location / Housing
Very affordable housing and you are within an hour of everything in SoCal. Definitely a lot better than most of the other DO Ortho programs in my opinion.....but I am a west coast guy so take that with a grain of salt.
Limitations
Hardworking program. No oncology rotation or elective but likely this will change in the near future.
Overall Rotation Experience / Conclusion
Excellent, this was my number 1 by far and not because it is going to be the chillest 5 years of my life but because it is going to be the hardest. However, i know I will be well trained. The fellowships the residents are getting speak for themselves.
