- Staff / Faculty / Chairman
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Generally the faculty are pretty friendly and like to teach the residents and students. Some of them are a bit ornery but hey, it's NYC. Dr. Levine, the program director, is a great guy and a real advocate for the residents.
- Didactics / Teaching
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Excellent across the board- good weekly specialty conferences and a very good weekly fracture conference where students can present if they want.
- Operating Experience
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The one area where I thought Columbia was lacking (and unfortunately one of the more important factors for me). The volume just did not seem to be enough for many of the residents to get a great operative experience. There were times when I was the 5th person scrubbed in on a primary TKA. Still, the chiefs seemed to be pretty comfortable in the OR so maybe I was just on a service that didn't allow the residents to do as much.
- Clinic Experience
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It's clinic.
- Research Opportunities
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Outstanding across all specialties. If you want to do research (and even if you don't) I would imagine you would have several publications by the time you finished up residency.
- Residents
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Great group, very down to earth. Liked them all without exception.
- Lifestyle
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Nothing stands out here in terms of day-to-day life. I don't think the residents were particularly overworked (partially b/c the volume never seemed to be that great)but there were definitely days when we didn't get out of the OR til late. Overall, I would say it was average.
- Location / Housing
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NYC is awesome. Washington Heights, not so much. Most of the residents seemed to live in the upper west side, which is a pretty decent area.
- Limitations
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The only problem I personally saw with the program (and what kept it from being in my top 3 programs) is the lack of in-depth experience on trauma at Tampa General Hospital. This is a top trauma fellowship, but the USF residents are kind of lost in the crowd as residents from several other programs are rotating at TGH also. I think if USF were to expand their experience at TGH and take more call, it would GREATLY improve the residency, in my opinion.
- Overall Rotation Experience / Conclusion
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I enjoyed my rotation here, but thought it had the lightest operative experience of the 3 programs at which I rotated. Still, it's a big name in a big city and I'm sure you'd be well trained when you finished.
