Program Review
Staff / Faculty / Chairman
Hospital staff overall are very nice. Everyone is willing to help and offer you the best views, teach you how to set up patients. The faculty are all very approachable and open to questions. Most do a wonderful job of teaching. Outside of Dr. Tkach (adult recon) no big time names and most have trained at the program themselves. Overall the best group of attendings I was with. Most took turns showing up to fracture conference and many 70-80% go to monthly journal club. The PD, Dr. West, is the most down to earth of the group. He is younger but ambitious and has streamlined the program into one of the best in the country.
Didactics / Teaching
There are morning didactics everyday for 2-3 hours. These are resident ran and provide useful information on daily basis. Most are generally PowerPoint slides. Wednesday's are trauma conference and are fairly benign. Most X-rays are read by students with the more difficult ones going to the interns. There are usually 2-3 attendings at trauma conference. Each Thursday there is an hour lecture on radiology by a well known MSK radiologist that does an excellent job.
Operating Experience
Hands down the best nanny where I had went. All programs say they offer the most OR time of anyone but they actually back it up. As a resident you are assigned to two attendings and therefore spend 4.5 days in the OR and a half day in clinic. Seniors rarely bump the lower levels and usually take time to teach a third or second year. Most ORs are the attending, resident and student. At times there may be more but is not usually the case. At times it was so busy I was one on one with the attending. Another great thing I noticed was residents were allowed and actually encouraged to do cases with surgeons not in the program if there were not enough cases to go around.
Clinic Experience
As a student you do more clinic than the residents but it's like most other places. Depending on the attending you either do a quick H&P or just tag along. This could be a weakness since there is so little clinic for residents but as an intern you get a chance to do more clinic than as a 2-5.
Research Opportunities
This seemed to be a gray area. Every resident is given a research mentor though you don't have to necessarily do research in their specialty. This was the busiest place I was at with very little down time so how they are able to get much research done i don't know. Like most DO programs there isn't a lot of "things at your disposal" so no large libraries with literature searchers or statisticians. The new GME lady has a lot of experience with clinical trials and sounded interested in getting more projects into the works but remains to be seen.
Residents
All are awesome guys. Since didactics are everyday they see a lot of each other. There is usually a third year out on peds and always a fourth year out on trauma (6 months a piece). But with just ten residents they are a close knit group. All will willing to help and answer any questions.
Lifestyle
Days are early like all ortho places and usually done around 5-7. A couple days went into 11 pm but not usually. It seems like most weekends were off and I'm not sure of their call schedule but seemed close to Q3 early and Q4 as a senior. Call weekends are rough and as of now not much of a post call. But hey what do you expect, it's ortho!!
Location / Housing
Sme people may not like the Midwest but I love it. You can't beat the hospitality and upbeat attitude of Midwesterners. OKC is not NYC by any means but that means low cost of living, very little traffic, and better sense of safety. Housing as a student may be difficult to find, some residents take students in but I think most stay at extended stay hotels. I stayed with a friend.
Limitations
Very little clinic time (good and bad). Research seems to be on the shoulders of the residents without much possibility of coming into ongoing projects, or large multimeter studies that would occupy large amounts of time. For east and west coasters maybe the location.
Overall Rotation Experience / Conclusion
This was my favorite rotation by far and is my number one choice. I think the up to date techniques, diverse fellowship trained docs, didactics and massive OR time make this a juggernaut program.
